The Visible Crown

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.

Researchers from the Visible Crown project led a policy-focused workshop in collaboration with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The talk examined attitudes to constitutionl change across the Caribbean, with research presented by Professor Cynthia Barrow-Giles and Professor Dwayne Devonish. Findings were based on the public opinion survey carried out across the region. 

On 5 December 2025, Professor Cynthia Barrow-Giles and Professor Dwayne Devonish presented an event ‘Reimagining the Nation: Public Opinion on the Republic Debate in Antigua and Barbuda’, discussing their findings from the Caribbean public opinion survey, carried out as part of the Visible Crown project. The event was recorded and can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/live/ldgYwWY9k1U

After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, historians have been reflecting on her legacy in countries across the Commonwealth. In British Overseas Territories like the Cayman Islands, where she remained Queen for the entirety of her reign, her death was more visibly commemorated than in many independent, formerly colonised nations where her legacy appeared more complicated and controversial.

Photo credit: Simon Berry

Photo credit: Reuters

Photo credit: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Barbados’ transition to a republic in 2021 raised the question as to whether any of the eight remaining constitutional monarchies in the Anglophone Caribbean would follow suit. Moreover, the highly criticised royal tour by William and Kate in March 2022 prompted calls to remove the Queen in all three of the countries they visited: Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas.

19 December 2021, 3:00 pm AST You are invited to the discussion of poll findings on attitudes to monarchy and republicanism in Barbados.