Grounded professionalism: professionals’ expertise, authority and autonomy in small island service systems

Research on professionalism is dominated by generic models from the Global North. Prevailing frameworks assume well-established institutions, clear professional boundaries and resource-rich service settings. Yet, in postcolonial small islands in the Global South, such premises are difficult to sustain. Police officers, social workers and teachers operate in tightly interwoven communities, with limited workforces and a lack of (financial) means, while balancing local needs with expectations from the former ‘mainland’. This challenge is exacerbated in contemporary contexts, as professionals face pressing issues amid shifts, surprises and sentiments, in short, societal turbulence. In this paper, we explore how professionalism is ‘done’ in turbulent small island service systems. We focus on the Caribbean islands Bonaire and Aruba, both former Dutch colonies, still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Drawing on interviews with 65 professionals across sectors and domains, conducted during a four-month field stay and supplemented by additional visits, we show that professionalism relies on (1) lived expertise, (2) reputational authority and (3) pragmatic autonomy. We conceptualise these dynamics as configurations of ‘grounded professionalism’. Although such grounded professionalism becomes particularly visible in small island contexts, these dimensions reflect broader processes of social and societal embedding of professional acts, also in the Global North.