Debt

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Scale (ratio)

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Small Axe A Caribbean Journal of Criticism

This essay addresses the epistemic limits of crisis as a trope for thinking about the future of Puerto Rico in the context of fiscal austerity programs and the combined effects of multiple disasters. Small-scale agriculture and mutual aid offer models of resistance to US colonialism as the underlying power structure reinforcing debt and political subservience. What can be perceived or accomplished outside the self-perpetuating frame of crisis? This essay sketches the contours of a different approach, one that considers what Puerto Ricans owe to each other as well as accounts for those debts owed to Puerto Ricans that will likely never be paid.

Debt, Crisis, and Resurgence in Puerto Rico