For this class in the history of anthropological thought (2022) I introduced Yarimar Bonilla’s Non-Sovereign Futures for a consideration of non-sovereign futures in anthropology:
For Bonilla’s empirical work on specific Caribbean political forms—Guadeloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico’s non-sovereignty, and why the Caribbean has more non-sovereign than sovereign arrangements—see Sovereignty and Non-Sovereignty in the Caribbean.
Non-Sovereign Futures in Anthropology
I began the consideration of non-sovereign futures in anthropology with images from the lecture on culture, the people Tim Ingold considered dissident or rebel voices: Pierre Bourdieu, James Gibson, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gregory Bateson. Would students recognize these individuals as revolutionary thinkers, or would they see them as part of the establishment?
It’s important not to categorize people based on appearances or assume that those who look alike think alike. These academics likely faced their own challenges within and outside the academy, and some may have held controversial political positions. However, they were all ultimately part of the academic institution, teaching classes and likely receiving pensions.
This reflection leads us to consider a different kind of dissident in the study of non-sovereign futures in anthropology–people who might not have been as readily accepted into the academy in earlier times, and whose work offers a fresh perspective on challenging established norms.
Yarimar Bonilla & Michel-Rolph Trouillot: A New Generation of Dissidents
My familiarity with Dr. Bonilla’s work stems partly from our shared mentor in graduate school, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, who we knew as “Rolph.”
Trouillot has been one of my greatest influences since I began studying anthropology in graduate school in 1993. His last book, Global Transformations, published in 2003, was still in development during my time as his student. Bonilla, as one of his last students, was able to engage with these ideas as they were being formulated and has since enacted them in ways that few others have managed.
I’ve previously assigned Trouillot’s work in Cultural Anthropology 2016, but it can be challenging to understand, and some aspects have become dated. Unfortunately, Trouillot’s career was cut short by a series of brain aneurysms in 2002-2003, leaving him unable to further develop the ideas in his 2003 book before his passing in 2012 (see In Memoriam, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, 1949-2012). In many ways, Bonilla’s work on non-sovereign futures in anthropology seems to be fulfilling aspects of Trouillot’s research program. She is also the co-editor of Trouillot Remixed
Contrasting Approaches: Caribbean Perspectives vs. Northern Studies
Trouillot and Bonilla represent a different approach to non-sovereign futures in anthropology compared to scholars like Tim Ingold, who we had been reading in this history of anthropology thought course. Trouillot, from Haiti, and Bonilla, from Puerto Rico, are both students of the Caribbean (I used Bonilla’s book again in Latin America & Caribbean 2023). This regional focus contrasts sharply with Ingold’s work, which tends to concentrate on northern or even circumpolar regions. Trouillot and Bonilla are deeply engaged with political economy and political issues.
Initially, I was concerned about how Bonilla’s work on non-sovereign futures would align with Ingold’s, given their seemingly disparate perspectives. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find significant overlap in their research and writing agendas, despite their different starting points.
Taking People Seriously: A Shared Anthropological Approach
One of the key aspects of Bonilla’s work on non-sovereign futures in anthropology, which resonates with Ingold’s approach, is her commitment to truly taking the people she studies seriously. She argues against simply using people as evidence or voices for the anthropologist’s own arguments. Instead, she calls for anthropology to “engage seriously with native arguments” (xvi). This echoes Ingold’s emphasis on learning from the people we study, not just about their worldview, but about the nature of the world itself.
Bonilla calls for us to “theorize with them” (xvii), a sentiment that aligns with Ingold’s assertion that anthropology should be a study with people, not of people. This approach moves beyond merely describing a way of life to engaging in meaningful conversations about fundamental aspects of existence.
Bonilla frames her work not as a study of an exotic “them,” but as a story “about and for ‘us’: those of us interested in the legacies of colonialism, those of us who wonder what forms of activism are necessary and possible in our contemporary moment, and those of us seeking, with anticipation, the political categories of the future” (xviii). This perspective aligns with Ingold’s interest in exploring ideas that are yet to be fully articulated or realized.
Challenging Us/Them Dichotomies in Anthropology
Bonilla expresses skepticism towards simplistic us/them dichotomies in anthropology, particularly in relation to classic texts that are often used in introductory anthropology courses. Two such texts she critically examines are Laura Bohannan’s “Shakespeare in the Bush” and Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” These articles have become staples in anthropology education, including in my own classes: “Bohannan’s piece is beloved because it fits well with one of the stories anthropology most likes to tell itself about itself: that the discipline can help make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. It does so, however, by ultimately placing Bohannan’s informants on the losing end of a debate to which they were never privy.” Bonilla further notes that “the way Bohannan deploys the voices of her informants is not as sources of insight, but as evidence both of and for her argument regarding cultural difference” (xv).
This critique highlights how these articles often function to make the familiar strange or highlight cultural misunderstandings, but in doing so, they may reinforce problematic power dynamics and miss opportunities for deeper cross-cultural understanding.
Bonilla’s critique challenges anthropologists to reconsider how we present and interpret cross-cultural encounters. It calls for a more equitable approach that truly values the insights of the people we study, rather than using their perspectives merely as evidence for our own arguments about cultural difference.
Sovereignty & North Atlantic Universals
The concept of sovereignty is central to Bonilla’s work on non-sovereign futures in anthropology. She reminds us that in Puerto Rico, the phrase “Viva Puerto Rico” would often be met with the response “libre y soberano” (free and sovereign) (xi), highlighting how sovereignty is not just an abstract concept but a lived aspiration for many.
Bonilla builds on Trouillot’s idea of “North Atlantic Universals” – concepts like sovereignty and modernity that, as Trouillot puts it, seduce and disappoint (xiii). These are ideas that originated in a European context but have been broadcast globally. They appear to simply describe the world, but hidden within them is a prescription for how the world should be organized.
The relevance of these concepts in exploring non-sovereign futures in anthropology is evident in contemporary geopolitical situations. For instance, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine brings questions of sovereignty to the forefront. The invasion of parts of Ukraine by Russia has made the question of what kind of sovereignty Ukraine will have a pressing contemporary issue. This situation exemplifies how the concept of sovereignty continues to shape global politics, while also highlighting the need to consider alternative, non-sovereign futures.
Non-Sovereign Futures: Imagining New Political Forms
Bonilla’s work on non-sovereign futures in anthropology focuses on places in the Caribbean, like Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe, that are not fully sovereign nations. She discusses how the dream of complete independence from colonial powers–“the right to a passport, a flag, a stamp, a coin, and the formation of a native state” (13)–has become increasingly difficult to realize, even for nominally independent nations.
Bonilla finds that there is a “search for a non-sovereign future… an effort to break free from the epistemic binds of political modernity even while still being compelled to think through its normative categories” (13). This echoes Ingold’s discussion of how Indigenous people have had to use imposed models (like the genealogical model) while trying to express something beyond those models.
Bonilla argues that the activists she studies are “in the process of prefiguring worlds that they cannot describe, much less guarantee, through the categories of modern sovereignty” (5). Their tactics are “not as simple means to clearly articulated ends, but as generative forms of prefigurative politics through which participants can imagine, conjure, and inhabit (even if only temporarily) alternative social and political forms” (5). This process of imagining and inhabiting alternative forms is at the heart of exploring non-sovereign futures in anthropology.
Connecting to Ingold’s Building & Dwelling
As we moved to the next chapter in Ingold’s work on building and dwelling, I drew a parallel to Bonilla’s ideas on non-sovereign futures in anthropology. Ingold challenges the notion that people have a pre-existing mental structure or building plan before engaging with the world. Instead, he argues that our understanding emerges from living in the world.
Similarly, Bonilla describes a political project that cannot yet be fully articulated or envisioned–it’s being imagined, conjured, and inhabited. This aligns with Ingold’s emphasis on inhabitation (or dwelling) as the primary mode of engaging with the world, and offers a way to think about how non-sovereign futures might emerge through lived experience.
Bonilla and Ingold share a commitment to taking people seriously, challenging established categories of thought, and exploring how new understandings and ways of being in the world emerge through lived experience and engagement. Their approaches encourage us to reconsider not only how we conduct anthropological research, but also how we conceptualize political and social structures. The exploration of non-sovereign futures in anthropology offers a promising avenue for imagining alternative political forms.
Recap: Non-Sovereign Futures in Anthropology
For this class in the history of anthropological thought (2022) I introduced Yarimar Bonilla’s Non-Sovereign Futures for a consideration of non-sovereign futures in anthropology: