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On 6 September 2017, hurricane Irma made landfall in Sint Maarten causing extensive infrastructural damage and leaving thousands homeless in its aftermath. Despite ongoing relief efforts, the country is still facing a huge recovery task nearly one year on. Amid a new hurricane season, many questions remain about the country’s future and its state of readiness for possible future climate impacts. In response to these concerns, the government of Sint Maarten has recently spearheaded several initiatives supported by the World Bank and the Netherlands, aimed at mobilizing resources to fuel the recovery efforts and build local-level capacity to prepare for future disaster events. These initiatives include several key pieces of legislations and plans that have set out the government’s vision and priorities. For this paper, I draw on these reports along with several key informant interviews conducted in summer 2018 to offer some preliminary insights on Sint Maarten’s post-hurricane situation. More specifically, I explore how ideas around resilience and “building back better”, get mobilized and incorporated in the recovery efforts and plans following Irma, and the particular work these perform both materially and discursively. The paper also highlights the various ways the post-hurricane situation has become a highly contested and politicized post/colonial terrain, fueled largely by the ongoing tensions and power asymmetries between the Netherlands and the Sint Maarten government.

The 2017 hurricane season caused widespread devastation across Central America, the Caribbean and the South-Eastern United States. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria were among the most intense Atlantic hurricanes and the costliest for the Circum-Caribbean region. For the small islands of the Caribbean, the hurricanes highlighted the acute vulnerability to climate change. The scale of physical ruin and level of social dislocation, however, do not just reflect the outcomes of a natural hazard. Continued structural dependency and outright entanglement in colonial relationships complicated recovery and coordination of aid to affected communities across the region. We argue that the experiences and outcomes of hazards like Harvey, Irma and Maria therefore invite examinations of persisting colonial power dynamics in discussions of climate hazard. Using Foucauldian theory for such an examination, we problematize simply championing resilience, without noting the possibilities for its use as a biopolitical regime of governing life. Such an appraisal, we suggest, might clarify a path toward reparations and climate change justice.

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Biopolitics, Stigma, and Religion
• Social Stigma and Vaccination Controversy in Hong Kong
• Vaccine Pass and Reactions from Religious Communities
• Concluding Remarks
• References