Peace Is More Than the End of Bombing

The Second Stage of the Vieques Struggle

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4499798
AutoresSherrie L Baver (City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, autor de correspondencia)
Año2006
Volumen33
Número1
Páginas102-115
Fecha de publicación2006-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLatin American Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0094-582X • E-ISSN: 1552-678X
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0094582x05283520
OpenAlexW2014771876
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas6

The nature of colonialism in Puerto Rico has caused most political issues to be viewed within the framework of status politics. In the first stage of the struggle to expel the U.S. Navy from the island (1999-2003), civil society in Puerto Rico united when the issues were reframed with links not to status politics but to human rights and social justice. Viequenses symbolized for Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, on the mainland, and in the world at large the costs of military colonialism. In the second stage of the struggle, since the military's departure, Viequenses have struggled to control the future development of their community as well as to clean up the toxic legacy of six decades of military maneuvers. The important question with regard to this stage is whether civil society can again rise above the institutionalized structure of colonial status politics to advocate for social and environmental justice. Viewing the Vieques case within the larger context of Puerto Rico's dependent relationship on the United States suggests that the struggle not only strengthened Puerto Ricans' capacity to determine their own future but also may have changed the calculus of colonialism from Washington's vantage point

Civil society · Colonialism · Context (archaeology) · Economic Justice · Mainland · Navy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · History · Law