Abstract, Neoliberal Urbanization and Synergistic Violence in Postearthquake Concepción

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Neoliberal Urbanization and Synergistic Violence in Postearthquake Concepción 

by Christian Paulo Matus Madrid, Rodrigo Ganter, Juan Antonio Carrasco, and Camila Barraza Huaiquimilla

The Chilean neoliberal state’s institutional strategy for displacing a historical population from Aurora de Chile, a centrally located area with real estate value in the city of Concepción, combined three types of violence: shock urbanization, which used the 2010 earthquake as an opportunity to impose the construction of major infrastructure, the construction of public opinion aimed at naturalizing displacement, and the strategic use of participation as a disciplinary socio-technical device to legitimize a solution to the conflict that guaranteed the building of the Bicentennial Bridge. The deployment of this synergistic, multifaceted violence was a sophisticated management technique associated with a neoliberal urban rationality that contributed to the process of urban renewal.

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Abstract, Remittances, the Rescaling of Social Conflicts, and the Stasis of Elite Rule in El Salvador

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Remittances, the Rescaling of Social Conflicts, and the Stasis of Elite Rule in El Salvador 

by Hannes Warnecke-Berger 

Remittances are the dominant factor in the contemporary economy of El Salvador, which is enjoying a new comparative advantage in the international economic system—the export of cheap labor to the Global North and particularly the United States. The Salvadoran economy is part of a transnational economic space, but this space is perverse: Although the poor are nominally receiving more money, remittances cause them to be caught in a vicious cycle of economic instability. At the same time, the elites are able to access remittances indirectly by becoming a Keynesian oligarchy—an oligarchy that extracts wealth by controlling the demand structure of the economy instead of production. Remittances represent bread and butter for the poor and a vehicle for transnationalization for the rich, and this leads to a new stasis of elite rule: remittances provoke the rescaling of social conflicts in favor of elites. Transnationalism in this regard must be interpreted as an elite strategy for suppressing the bargaining power of the subaltern class. In this transnational remittances economy, opportunities for the subaltern class and migrants to participate directly in reshaping this economic space are limited or nonexistent. As a consequence, they must rely on translocal moral economies linking migrants with their families at home, where they are still able to impose some control. Meanwhile, elites foster transnationalism by dismantling these very modes of control. In this sense, remittances are the silver bullet for facilitating neoliberalism in the Global South. In El Salvador, they produce ultrastability for the oligarchy and chaos for the poor.

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Abstract, The Uses of Culture in the Last Argentine Dictatorship (1976–1983): From Studies of Repression to Analyses of the Construction of Consensus

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The Uses of Culture in the Last Argentine Dictatorship (1976–1983): From Studies of Repression to Analyses of the Construction of Consensus 

by Laura Schenquer

Democratic governments are not the only ones that formulate political strategies to generate consensus. The last Argentine dictatorship (1976–1983) also developed cultural, educational, and communication policies to maintain and increase its support and to curb the opposition. However, these policies have not been studied in the postdictatorship, largely because of the prevalence of the image of the apagón cultural (cultural blackout)—the notion that the dictatorship’s project was simply repression and censorship. Examination of recently discovered official documents reveals the productive and creative character of the dictatorship’s cultural projects, which were used to increase social control and impose a certain “order.”

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Abstract, Transnational Organizations, Accessibility, and the Next Generation

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Transnational Organizations, Accessibility, and the Next Generation

by Jack Durrell 

Involvement in transnational organizations is an understudied aspect of next-generation transnationalism, the cross-border connections maintained by individuals born and/or raised in countries of settlement. Exploration of institutional accessibility—the existence or nonexistence of barriers to next-generation inclusion—across a nonrepresentative sample of Mexican and Salvadoran transnational political and philanthropic groups operating in California and Washington, DC, shows how it can facilitate next-generation involvement in cross-border organizations. Accessibility is judged in terms of four main indicators: resource constraints, outreach strategies, involvement in U.S. political arenas, and pervasive institutional cultures.

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La participación en organizaciones transnacionales es un aspecto poco estudiado del transnacionalismo de la próxima generación, las conexiones transfronterizas mantenidas por individuos nacidos y / o criados en países de asentamiento. La exploración de la accesibilidad institucional—la existencia o inexistencia de barreras para la inclusión de la próxima generación—a través de una muestra no representativa de grupos políticos y filantrópicos transnacionales mexicanos y salvadoreños que operan en California y Washington, DC, muestra cómo puede facilitar la participación de la próxima generación en organizaciones transfronterizas. La accesibilidad se juzga en términos de cuatro indicadores principales: limitaciones de recursos, estrategias de publicidad y reclutamiento, participación en los ámbitos políticos de los EE. UU. y culturas institucionales generalizadas.

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Abstract, Social Movements, Crises, and Mobilizations: A Look at Summer 2019

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Social Movements, Crises, and Mobilizations: A Look at Summer 2019 

by Liliana Cotto Morales 

Beginning in the 1990s and in the first five years of the twenty-first century, we saw a strengthening of social movements that had achieved political space for combating U.S. neoliberal strategies and halting the dangerous influence of big business and capitalist governments. These movements became the protagonists influencing state policies in several Latin American countries and other regions. A systematic study of the knowledge produced by this resistance and insurgency may suggest alternatives that could be transformed into solutions.

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Abstract, The Boricua Summer: Keys from a Human Rights Perspective

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The Boricua Summer: Keys from a Human Rights Perspective 

by José Javier Colón Morera
The Boricua summer1 of 2019 (as the series of popular demonstrations against the administration of the then-governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló Nevares, has been termed) was a complex social event with significant potential. Some of its features are specific to the social context of one of the world’s last colonies, a body politic that is still fighting for full decolonization and the expansion of its democracy in the face of an austerity agenda that has intensely affected the vulnerable sectors of the population (Colón Morera, 2016; Negrón-Muntaner, 2019; Rivera Ramos, 2019). In another sense, however, reflect a new anti-neoliberal activism that is common to very diverse contexts and significantly transnational (Bandy and Smith, 2004; Cotto Morales, in this issue; Díaz Lotero, 2019). The Boricua summer became part of an extensive process of citizen empowerment linked to the country’s struggle to escape the colonial entrapment of its current territorial Commonwealth’ arrangement (Colón Ríos, 2016; Fonseca, 2019; Negrón-Muntaner, 2019).2 For this reason, it demands further analysis and presents the enormous challenges of capturing a process in full motion.3

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Abstract, Puerto Rico’s Summer 2019 Uprising and the Crisis of Colonialism

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Puerto Rico’s Summer 2019 Uprising and the Crisis of Colonialism

by Pedro Cabán

July 22, 2019, was a watershed moment in Puerto Rico’s history. On that day Puerto Ricans by the hundreds of thousands marched and demanded the resignation of Ricardo Rosselló Nevares, the colony’s inept and ethically bankrupt governor. On August 2 the pro-statehood governor became the first elected governor of Puerto Rico to resign his office.

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Abstract, The Self-Inflicted Dimensions of Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Crisis

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The Self-Inflicted Dimensions of Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Crisis

by Argeo T. Quiñones-Pérez and Ian J. Seda-Irizarry

The fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico, which constrains the ways in which the government can try to tackle the economic depression, is in important ways self-inflicted—the product of economic policies undertaken at the local level. When the crisis is approached in this way, the resolution of the island’s colonial situation can be seen as a necessary but not sufficient condition for solving the problems of the depression’s victims.

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Abstract, The Debt/Energy Nexus behind Puerto Rico’s Long Blackout: From Fossil Colonialism to New Energy Poverty

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The Debt/Energy Nexus behind Puerto Rico’s Long Blackout: From Fossil Colonialism to New Energy Poverty

by Sandy Smith-Nonini

After Hurricane Maria wiped out Puerto Rico’s electrical grid in 2017, its citizens endured the longest blackout in U.S. history, some not regaining power until nearly a year later. An analysis of the profound social impacts and health costs and the delays in power restoration with a focus on the relationship between the U.S. territory’s debt crisis and its “fossil colonial” past offers insights into patterns of manipulation by politicians, bankers, and fossil-fuel companies that led to excess borrowing by the Puerto Rican public electrical utility, contributing to a neglect of infrastructure and high rates for citizens during a time period when tax incentives for corporate manufacturing were being phased out just as oil prices rose to record levels.

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Abstract, Exceptionality and Colonial-State–Corporate Crimes in the Puerto Rican Fiscal and Economic Crisis

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Exceptionality and Colonial-State–Corporate Crimes in the Puerto Rican Fiscal and Economic Crisis

by José Atiles Osoria

A sociolegal analysis of the sources of Puerto Rico’s fiscal and economic crisis points to the use of the colonial state of exception as an economic development policy facilitating the creation of a tax-haven-like economy and normalizing a series of a colonial-state–corporate crimes. The Puerto Rican people need to hold those who generated the crisis accountable both politically and legally. They must continue mobilizing and promoting the repoliticization of recovery efforts by not paying the public debt, taking legal action against financial predators and corrupt politicians, clawing back fees and refusing to pay any additional fees, giving more importance to the human rights of Puerto Ricans than to the rights of bondholders and vulture funds, and initiating a process of decolonization that will allow them to make decisions about their future.

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Abstract, Building a Strategic Trade and Industrial Policy for Puerto Rico in the Context of Colonial Exclusion and Lack of a Development Strategy

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Building a Strategic Trade and Industrial Policy for Puerto Rico in the Context of Colonial Exclusion and Lack of a Development Strategy

by Maribel Aponte-García and Karen Orengo-Serra

Given Puerto Rico’s colonial exclusion from Latin American and Caribbean regionalism and its ruling parties’ disregard for stimulating an industrial base of small and medium-sized local enterprises rather than U.S. multinational corporations, Puerto Rico needs to construct new pathways to inclusive socioeconomic development. One approach is articulating strategic and industrial policies to stimulate these enterprises from below by promoting value chains focused on exports or export potential. A proposed systematization draws on the experience gained in a project carried out under an agreement between the University of Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico’s Trade and Export Company to generate strategic export plans and map value chains for small and medium-sized enterprises.

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Abstract, The Political Economy of Puerto Rico: Surplus Use and Class Structure

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The Political Economy of Puerto Rico: Surplus Use and Class Structure

by Ricardo R. Fuentes-Ramírez

Assuming that the first claim on a society’s output is to meet the essential consumption needs of its citizens, the remainder of its output, or surplus, can be conceptualized as discretionary income that it may use in various ways. An analysis of the use of the surplus in Puerto Rico suggests that most of the economic surplus remains within the island, unproductively utilized by domestic capitalists. By redirecting this surplus to productive investment, Puerto Rico could initiate a process of recovery. The task is developing the political will to transfer this wealth from high-income Puerto Ricans and unproductive sectors to a radical industrial policy initiative. Emphasizing that there are in fact alternatives to austerity may facilitate social movements’ coalescing around this policy and thus contribute to the development of the political conditions necessary for restoring growth and development.

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Photo Essay: The Power of Popular Protest: El Verano Boricua

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Photo Essay: The Power of Popular Protest: El Verano Boricua

Federico Cintrón-Moscoso and Vanessa Díaz
Text by Jean Hostetler-Díaz

In July and August 2019, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans participated in a series of mass mobilizations in San Juan and municipalities across the island, demanding that officials be held accountable for their betrayal of the public trust and calling for the immediate resignation of Governor Ricardo “Ricky” Rosselló. These protests were triggered by the revelation of digital chats between the governor and his closest collaborators that included mocking those who died in Hurricane Maria, misogynistic comments, homophobic slurs, and remarks reflecting class bias.

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Introduction, Calles de la Resistencia: Pathways to Empowerment in Puerto Rico

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Calles de la Resistencia: Pathways to Empowerment in Puerto Rico

by Jean Hostetler-Díaz 

The Boricua (Puerto Rican) heritage is one of resistance and valiant defense of freedom. From the initial, violent Spanish conquest of Borinquen (the island’s original name), the realities of domination and oppression by hostile invading armies confronted an organic consciousness of liberation within the indigenous culture. From the initial, violent Spanish conquest, the realities of domination and oppression by hostile invading armies confronted an organic consciousness of liberation within the indigenous culture. Puerto Ricans have always resisted, organized, and taken action against their oppressors and against their colonization in all its forms. It has been a centuries-long, life-and-death struggle, with brutally repressive policies and other methods of suppression and control constantly attempting to defeat the forces of resistance. At various times, conditions have reached critical mass, and a clear confrontation of forces has occurred. Last summer that point was reached when the forces of resistance became abundantly visible and their power obvious. Ultimately, this sustained collective uprising, now known as El Verano Boricua (The Puerto Rican Summer), directly and triumphantly challenged state authority.

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