This paper hopes to critically problematise further the issue of expertise in small jurisdictions. It does so on the basis of comparative fieldwork: First, a series of semi-structured interviews undertaken during summer 1992 with social science academics from the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill (UWICH), Barbados, one of the three main campuses of the regional University of the west Indies (UWI). Quotations in this article are
drawn from these interview scripts. Second, a reflexive autobiography, locating the self as an academic based at the University of Malta (UM). The material is culled from completed
doctoral research, now looking for an interested publisher (Baldacchino 1993).peer-reviewe
