Within the Kingdom: Navigating Aruba's Postcolonial Identity

In 1986, Aruba achieved Status Aparte within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, establishing a ten-year trajectory toward full sovereign independence. In the 1990s, Aruba indefinitely deferred this transition, choosing instead to remain a constituent country within the Kingdom. Traditional post-colonial narratives often frame the rejection of independence as a failure of national consciousness or a symptom of lingering colonial dependency. This thesis challenges that assumption by examining the central paradox of Aruban identity: a pragmatic embrace of non-sovereign status alongside persistent dissatisfaction with Dutch political oversight. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and scholarly literature this thesis argues that Arubans strategically leverage Kingdom membership for its material and legal benefits while resisting the cultural and political asymmetries it imposes. I introduce the concept of content discontentment to describe this posture: a deliberate navigation of non-sovereign life in which strategic acceptance and unresolved grievance coexist. Rather than a failure to decolonize, Aruba’s trajectory demonstrates an intentional self-determination that takes a form irreducible to binary independence and dependence.  Keywords: non-soverignty, content discontentment, Aruban nationalism, Dutch Caribbean, Status Aparte, postcolonialism