Colonial Debts: The Case of Puerto Rico

Colonial Debts: The Case of Puerto Rico

2021 • 276 pages

With the largest municipal debt in US history and a major hurricane that destroyed much of the archipelago's infrastructure, Puerto Rico has emerged as a key site for the exploration of neoliberalism and disaster capitalism. In Colonial Debts Rocío Zambrana develops the concept of neoliberal coloniality in light of Puerto Rico's debt crisis. Drawing on decolonial thought and praxis, Zambrana shows how debt functions as an apparatus of predation that transforms how neoliberalism operates. Debt functions as a form of coloniality, intensifying race, gender, and class hierarchies in ways that strengthen the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. Zambrana also examines the transformation of protest in Puerto Rico. From La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción's actions, long-standing land rescue/occupation in the territory, to the July 2019 protests that ousted former governor Ricardo “Ricky” Rosselló, protests pursue variations of decolonial praxis that subvert the positions of power that debt installs. As Zambrana demonstrates, debt reinstalls the colonial condition and adapts the racial/gender order essential to it, thereby emerging as a key site for political-economic subversion and social rearticulation.

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Radical Américas

Radical Américas is a 4-book series first released in 1995 with contributions by Barbara J. Friesen, Geo Maher, and Thea Riofrancos.

From case management to service coordination for children with emotional, behavioral, or mental disorders
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Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador
Colonial Debts: The Case of Puerto Rico

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