Analysis Of Exclusion, Island Style By Kristy A Belton

In “Exclusion, Island Style: Citizenship Deprivation and denial in the Caribbean”, Kristy A. Belton analysis how the denial of the human right to nationality impacts people daily life. She mainly focuses on how the denial of a nationality impacts people of Haitian descent in the Caribbean. She looks specifically at the exclusion of people of Haitian descent from citizenship in the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic; two democratic countries seen as the most civil liberty and political right in the Caribbean. Belton explains her main idea by looking at contemporary thought of nationality by focusing on Hannah Arendt notion of the “right to have rights” (126), how people of Haitian descent in the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic are denied the right to claim a nationality and how not having a nationality has impacted their lives. The denial of the right to a nationality put people of Haitian descent in both countries in a status of statelessness, since no state want to claim them part of their national community. Belton main goal is to bring …show more content…
Belton critiques contemporary scholar’s argument that because we live in a globalized world citizenship is becoming insignificant. Scholars argue that native and foreign migrants, voluntary and involuntary, have rights that does not require citizenship. Belton counter argues this belief by arguing both groups hold citizenship somewhere based on that state’s citizenship law. Citizenship requirements are not all the same state by state. She supports her main argument by arguing that in this era of global citizenship, the notion of a ‘right to have Rights’” is still important; mainly because there is not a universal law for citizenship. Belton analysis the requirements to become a Bahamian or Dominican citizen, and how those that do not meet the guidelines lose their right to a