Digital Currencies in Caribbean Territories: Investigating Intersections of Finance and Empire

This project will explore how the global proliferation of digital currencies and digital assets recreates colonial practices in Caribbean overseas territories belonging to the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK)As the US and the UK weigh their prospective (and sometimes interlinked) commitments to fintech sector development and potential Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), this research seeks to understand how the financial benefits and risks of decentralized blockchain-based assets and currencies flow and are distributed locally, regionally, and globally; how native territorial populations are impacted; and how these outcomes compare between the US and the UK Drawing from the disciplines of political economy, anthropology, and economic geography, I plan to conduct a comparative analysis focusing on development processes and outcomes of digital currency policy in the US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.