Estrategias de organización social y mobilizacion frente a la precariedad y los desastres naturales

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This interdisciplinary panel looks at the different organizational configurations, migrations, and practices that allowed various sectors of civil society to withstand the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Drawing on ethnographic, autoethnographic, and qualitative methods, as well as sociotechnical and content analysis, the research brought forth in this panel examines the ways Puerto Rico’s different sectors, including the most marginalized, continue resisting the harmful economic, social, and political policies that were already in place before Maria and worsened after the hurricane. Using particular case studies that include feminist social movements, migration, and independent community organizations, this panel demonstrates how people in Puerto Rico and its diaspora have created self-sustained networks that move away from state dependence and instead focus on strengthening communities and embodying solidarity. Ultimately, panelists will critically reflect on and examine their role and positionality within their research and how it impacts and interfaces within the communities they work with.

Sub Track

• Civil Society and Social Movements

Chair

• Fatima K Espinoza Vasquez, University of Kentucky

Discussant

• Blanca Ortiz-Torres, University of Puerto Rico

Individual Presentations

• The Resilience of Solidarity Networks in the Aftermath of Hurricane Maria: An Analysis of Community Sociotechnical Infrastructures - Fatima K Espinoza Vasquez, University of Kentucky

• Observing, reflecting, but not yet interviewing: "Huracán María" and dichotomies of research in the Midwest - Lisa Ortiz, Illinois State University

• "La Colectiva": A pedagogy of intersectional feminist solidarity in Puerto Rico - Aurora Santiago-Ortiz, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Cambio desde abajo y desde adentro: desmantelando el asistencialismo desde la autogestión en Puerto Rico post María - Jacqueline Villarrubia-Mendoza, Colgate University; Roberto Vélez Vélez, State University of New York New Paltz -New Paltz

• “Converting a Fine”: NGOs, Class, and Digital Utopia in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas - Jason Scott, University of Colorado