Performing Power: Royalty and Reckoning in the Caribbean
26 February 2026
On 26 February 2026, researchers from the Visible Crown project team held an online panel discussion. Entitled 'Performing Power: Royalty and Reckoning in the Caribbean’, the event examined the enduring and contested presence of the British monarchy in the Caribbean. The panel explored how royal tours, especially the pivotal 1966 tour, were carefully choreographed by the Palace and diplomatic officials in order to promote a stable, benign image of monarchy. It also examined the view from Whitehall in regard to Caribbean states’ relationship with the Crown. We discussed the role of powerful White minority groups in the Caribbean and their relationship with the British monarchy, exploring how the monarchy served to legitimise and normalise White political and economic control in the twentieth century. The panel also considered the countervailing histories of protest and resistance, highlighting how Caribbean activists challenged the performative spectacle of monarchy during the tours. Together, these presentations illuminated how the monarchy performed power in the Caribbean, the ways that this was and continues to be challenged, and the contemporary implications in debates about decolonisation, republicanism and reparations.
