Interested in value formation in offshore financial centres and how they affect the long-term fiscal and political cycle of nations. Also interested in Bitcoin and distributed ledger technologies.
I manage a weekly tax discussion group at the University of Cambridge. It is a mix of PhD students, lecturers and fellows from law, economics, land economy, development studies and sociology.
https://research.sociology.cam.ac.uk/profile/dr-may-hen-smith Supervisors: Jason Sharman
Link to paper in Simon Fraser University repository: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/15419
The Cayman ... more Link to paper in Simon Fraser University repository: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/15419
The Cayman Islands facilitate some of the largest international financial flows. Despite international pressures, they continue to service international networks of corporations and wealthy elites unperturbed. Few ethnographic studies of offshore financial centers exist because of the private nature of their professionals who uphold strict codes of confidentiality. This thesis describes the sub-elite professional operators of the Cayman Islands and explains the Island’s transition from a modest maritime economy to one of the most powerful finance-based economies in the world. In exchange for material success, the Cayman Islands has sequestered its indigenous populations’ identity in favour of a stronger, prestigious and more unified identity as an international offshore financial center. Through ethnography, I delineate how sub-elites have carefully orchestrated the Islands’ development to their interests and manipulated its political economy, in part by de-legitimizing Caymanian political assertions, therefore silencing their voices, undermining their citizenship, and de-legitimizing their claim to their Island’s own self-governance. Keywords: Caribbean elites; Durable inequality; Sub-elites; Offshore financial center; Caribbean; Cayman Islands
Link to paper in Simon Fraser University repository: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/15419
The Cayman ... more Link to paper in Simon Fraser University repository: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/15419
The Cayman Islands facilitate some of the largest international financial flows. Despite international pressures, they continue to service international networks of corporations and wealthy elites unperturbed. Few ethnographic studies of offshore financial centers exist because of the private nature of their professionals who uphold strict codes of confidentiality. This thesis describes the sub-elite professional operators of the Cayman Islands and explains the Island’s transition from a modest maritime economy to one of the most powerful finance-based economies in the world. In exchange for material success, the Cayman Islands has sequestered its indigenous populations’ identity in favour of a stronger, prestigious and more unified identity as an international offshore financial center. Through ethnography, I delineate how sub-elites have carefully orchestrated the Islands’ development to their interests and manipulated its political economy, in part by de-legitimizing Caymanian political assertions, therefore silencing their voices, undermining their citizenship, and de-legitimizing their claim to their Island’s own self-governance. Keywords: Caribbean elites; Durable inequality; Sub-elites; Offshore financial center; Caribbean; Cayman Islands
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The Cayman Islands facilitate some of the largest international financial flows. Despite international pressures, they continue to service international networks of corporations and wealthy elites unperturbed. Few ethnographic studies of offshore financial centers exist because of the private nature of their professionals who uphold strict codes of confidentiality. This thesis describes the sub-elite professional operators of the Cayman Islands and explains the Island’s transition from a modest maritime economy to one of the most powerful finance-based economies in the world. In exchange for material success, the Cayman Islands has sequestered its indigenous populations’ identity in favour of a stronger, prestigious and more unified identity as an international offshore financial center. Through ethnography, I delineate how sub-elites have carefully orchestrated the Islands’ development to their interests and manipulated its political economy, in part by de-legitimizing Caymanian political assertions, therefore silencing their voices, undermining their citizenship, and de-legitimizing their claim to their Island’s own self-governance.
Keywords: Caribbean elites; Durable inequality; Sub-elites; Offshore financial center; Caribbean; Cayman Islands
Papers by May Hen-Smith
Book Reviews by May Hen-Smith
Books by May Hen-Smith
Sub-elites as fiduciary gatekeepers of global elites: a fiscal anthropology of the Cayman Islands offshore financial centre.
The Cayman Islands facilitate some of the largest international financial flows. Despite international pressures, they continue to service international networks of corporations and wealthy elites unperturbed. Few ethnographic studies of offshore financial centers exist because of the private nature of their professionals who uphold strict codes of confidentiality. This thesis describes the sub-elite professional operators of the Cayman Islands and explains the Island’s transition from a modest maritime economy to one of the most powerful finance-based economies in the world. In exchange for material success, the Cayman Islands has sequestered its indigenous populations’ identity in favour of a stronger, prestigious and more unified identity as an international offshore financial center. Through ethnography, I delineate how sub-elites have carefully orchestrated the Islands’ development to their interests and manipulated its political economy, in part by de-legitimizing Caymanian political assertions, therefore silencing their voices, undermining their citizenship, and de-legitimizing their claim to their Island’s own self-governance.
Keywords: Caribbean elites; Durable inequality; Sub-elites; Offshore financial center; Caribbean; Cayman Islands
Sub-elites as fiduciary gatekeepers of global elites: a fiscal anthropology of the Cayman Islands offshore financial centre.