Fires Beneath the Water: Caribbean Tectonic Relationality

• In Event: Navigating the Currents: Ecologies of Land, Labor, and Liberation

Description for Program

Drawing on Epeli Hau‘ofa’s concept of the “sea of islands” to explore Caribbean tectonic and ecological relationality, this paper foregrounds volcanic activity as a material and affective thread that binds the region together despite the divisive legacies of colonial histories and Western epistemologies. In Martinique, local beliefs about shared volcanic reservoirs between Mt. Pelée and St. Vincent’s La Soufrière challenge continentalist imaginaries that frame islands as isolated and disconnected. Instead, these beliefs reflect an archipelagic worldview that sees the Caribbean as an interconnected space shaped by shared geographies, histories, and ecological vulnerabilities. This paper analyzes agricultural and ecological knowledge systems—rooted in plantation economies but reimagined through local and diasporic practices—as they transcend boundaries imposed by colonial linguistic and political systems. Volcanic activity, with its seismic ruptures and transformative potential, serves as both a harbinger of threat and a site of possibility, forging solidarities that traverse the region’s waters. Engaging Hau‘ofa’s vision, I argue that Caribbean islands form a relational ecology, disrupting Western notions of isolated geographies and emphasizing connections forged through tectonic processes, environmental histories, and lived experiences. By rethinking the Caribbean as a sea of islands, this paper contributes to a genealogy of Black ecological thought, destabilizing fixed notions of identity, place, and the human while offering new pathways for imagining collective futures.

Author

• Alyssa A. L. James, University of Southern California