Colonial Debts: The Case of Puerto Rico

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 Roc o 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 Construcci n's actions, long-standing land rescue/occupation in the territory, to the July 2019 protests that ousted former governor Ricardo "Ricky" Rossell , 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.

Author: Rocío Zambrana
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 06/04/2021
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.83lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9781478011835

About the Author
Rocío Zambrana is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Emory University and author of Hegel's Theory of Intelligibility.