Louis Philippe Römer

My current book project, Strategic Ambiguities: Race, Class, and Populism on the Caribbean Airwaves, argues that class and race serve as fluid signifiers of political loyalties and hostilities. Starting from the position that emerging political groups shape new constituencies rather than appeal to existing ones, Strategic Ambiguities shows that populist politicians and media influencers use racial and class identity markers to signify alignment with or opposition to their political goals. In doing so, these actors destabilize social categories of difference and form coalitions that cross racial and class boundaries. Strategic Ambiguities draws on a collection of recorded political talk radio shows and long-term ethnographic fieldwork on the production and consumption of talk radio in Curaçao, a Dutch overseas territory in the Caribbean.