Cambio desde abajo y desde adentro: desmantelando el asistencialismo desde la autogestión en Puerto Rico post María

• In Event: Estrategias de organización social y mobilizacion frente a la precariedad y los desastres naturales

Abstract

In the weeks after Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico, a number of grassroots development initiatives known as Centros de Apoyo Mutuo (CAMs) emerged throughout the island. The CAMs emerged either through pre-existing networks of activism or neighborhood solidarity, and they became the first line of response to assess and support many communities.

After several months of fieldwork in Puerto Rico examining the emergence and work of Centros de Apoyo Mutuo (CAMs) after hurricane Maria, it has become evident to us that breaking the cycle of dependency created by government assistance models represents the biggest challenge for CAMs. Hence, we pose the following questions: How do you transform the expectations of a people away from assistance toward autogestión? How do you cultivate a consciousness on the value of community empowerment in lieu of political party loyalties? How do you build a movement toward autonomy and self-reliance after centuries of colonial domination? Preliminary results indicate that while CAM members are optimistic about the potential of their initiatives and see themselves as working beyond the period of emergency, they also recognize the complexity of achieving large scale socioeconomic changes that go beyond the communities they are working with, as well as the power and reach of oppositional forces such as the state, political parties and over one hundred years of U.S. colonialism. However, they also acknowledge that, in spite of themselves, the people have been awakened.

Authors

• Jacqueline Villarrubia-Mendoza, Colgate University

• Roberto Vélez Vélez, State University of New York New Paltz -New Paltz