Department of African American and African Studies
Spring 2019 Brown Bag Series
Wednesday May 8th 12-1:30
Hart Hall 2215 A MAROON
STATE IN FORMATION:
SOVEREIGNTY AND STATE
EFFECTS IN THE POLITY OF
ACCOMPONG Robert Connell (UC Davis)
Since the signing of a peace treaty with their British adversaries in 1739, the Maroon
polity of Accompong, Jamaica has practiced a form
of limited self-governing autonomy within contested
territorial boundaries. However, with an audacity
reminiscent of their guerilla war against
enslavement, in 2004 Accompong ratified a
constitution declaring themselves a sovereign state,
with all the attendant rights, privileges, and
responsibilities of an independent nation-state
bestowed onto the new Maroon republic. Thus
positioned as a state project rivaling the government
of Jamaica, the leadership of Accompong has been gradually developing a state
apparatus commensurate with its aspirations for sovereignty. Using an approach to
state theory that analyzes state processes and practices through the effects they
produce, this talk will explore the historical basis and socio-political implications of the
on-going processes of micro-state formation in the Maroon regions of Jamaica. Within
this framework, three key questions will guide this talk: Although often positioned as
antithetical projects, to what extent was the historical Maroon polity enmeshed with
British colonial state projects in Jamaica? What are the institutional contours of the
Maroon proto-state? And how has contemporary Maroon state formation reproduced
or amplified class and gender hierarchies within the polity? I argue that this analysis of
contemporary Maroon politics provides an important example of the emergent and
always-tentative nature of sovereignty and state formation. Robert Connell is the UC
President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in African American and African Studies at UC Davis.