Workers, Power, and Rural Life: Puerto Rico and the Making of Anthropology

• In Event: Anthropological Practices in Puerto Rico: A Retrospective View

Abstract

This paper explores the role of Puerto Rico in the development of anthropological political economy, and the formation of an anthropology of Puerto Rico. It discusses the legacy of Marxism, Culture History, and Puerto Rican Feminist Oral History in the study of Puerto Ricans. Drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of participant objectivation, the author also examines the importance of an anthropology that considers the history of the academic formation of Puerto Rican anthropologists and their social position (gender, race, class, and personal family history). The anthropology of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans is important to understand the study of the intersection of power, culture, and history in the disciplines of anthropology, history, and Latin American and Caribbean studies.

Author

• Ismael García Colón, CUNY College of Staten Island and Graduate Center