Colonial Debts

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 <i>Colonial Debts</i> 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.