Lo Que María Alumbró: Collective Care/Cuidado Colectivo Restricted; Files Only
Figueroa, Taína (Spring 2024)
Abstract
This dissertation is broadly concerned with how we disrupt racio-colonial capitalism (a term developed by Yarimar Bonilla) in Puerto Rico. Extractive and exploitative social relations are central to the functioning of racio-colonial capitalism and I am interested in how we build and expand non-extractive social relations. Epistemology is central to this work. Building and expanding non-extractive social relations requires the disruption of epistemic frameworks that undergird racio-colonial capitalism – like individualism. It also requires the development of epistemic frameworks that help reveal structures of exploitation and extraction. Finally, it requires an expansion of our epistemic frameworks around what makes for effective social change – an expansion of the political imaginary. Tracking events, community responses, and research in Puerto Rico following the landfall of Hurricanes Irma and María in September 2017, I will argue through the work of Gloria Anzaldúa that Puerto Ricans experienced a shift in self-understanding; through theorists of gaslighting I will argue that the federal government engaged in structural gaslighting in the case of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of these storms; and through the work of Dean Spade I will argue that an effective method to meeting community members material needs while also addressing the epistemic shifts that disrupting racio-colonial capitalism requires can be found in forms of radical collective care like Mutual Aid that engage in intentional epistemic shifts through praxis.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
How I got here?
The Overview
Summary of the Chapters
Chapter 1: Disrupting Desconocimientos (2017-2019)
Chapter 2: Structural Gaslighting (2019-2022)
Chapter 3: Mutual Aid as Effective Resistance (2022-2024)
Conclusion: Future Orientations
Influences
Chapter 1: Disrupting Desconocimientos
On Anzaldúa
Path of Conocimiento
Border Living & Nepantla
Arrebato
Coatlicue State
Desconocimientos & Epistemic Shifts
The Reality: Puerto Ricans are disposable
Women Warriors: Collective Care & Centros de Apoyo Mutuo
The Diasporic Condition: Estamos Aquí y Allá
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Structural Gaslighting
Structural Gaslighting
Federal Policies & Practices
Short Term Recovery Efforts
Long Term Recovery Efforts
Federal Narrative Used to Explain Delay
Conclusion: Structural Gaslighting, Debt, and Colonialism
Chapter 3: Mutual Aid As Effective Resistance
Mutual Aid’s Origins
Spade & Mutual Aid
Praxis: The Epistemological Power of Mutual Aid
1. Effective Structural Analysis
2. Expansion of Social Relations
3. Development of New Skills
4. Expansion of Political Imagination
Centros de Apoyo Mutuo & Epistemic Shifts
Conclusion
Conclusion
The Highlights
Abuelos’s Legacy: Lessons & Future Work
Abuelo
La Calle Morovis
Social Change & Ecological Work in Puerto Rico
New Orientations
Bibliography
About this Dissertation
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File download under embargo until 22 May 2030 | 2024-05-03 22:42:01 -0400 | File download under embargo until 22 May 2030 |
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