The Visible Crown

About the Project

The Visible Crown is a major interdisciplinary project, funded by the AHRC and run by a team of researchers in the UK and the Caribbean. It interrogates the political and cultural significance of Elizabeth II in the eight Caribbean countries in which she is still head of state. A year ago, Barbados declared its intention to move to republic status. Prime Minister Mia Mottley said that it was time for Barbados to ‘fully leave our colonial past behind’. The transition will happen on 30 November 2021. Why, this project asks, has Barbados succeeded in this endeavour where other Caribbean states have failed? To what extent is there political will or popular support to effect such a change elsewhere? Has, indeed, 'time come' for the Crown in the Caribbean?

This project begins in 1952, with the accession of Elizabeth II, and goes up to the present day. It examines the significance of the monarch (as a person) and the Crown (as an institution) across a period that encompasses decolonisation, independence and present-day calls for constitutional reform. It seeks to understand the factors that can explain the surprising continuity of the Crown in the region, and explores how attitudes towards monarchy, and to Elizabeth II, have changed over time. It considers how monarchy has featured in evolving narratives of the nation, and in ideas of Britishness in the region. The project will stimulate broader questions about relations between Britain and its former colonies, and about the dynamics of decolonisation, not as an achieved end, but as an ongoing process. These issues have been particularly acute in the Caribbean where a history of slavery, indentureship and colonialism coexists, in the form of persistent links to the Crown, with real symbolic and material connections to the former colonial power.

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