Phantom places against archival power: The Puerto Rican Planning Board and the ghost of El Fanguito
Topics: Caribbean Geographies
, Latinx Geographies
, Historical Geography
Keywords: Phantom places; Archival power; slums; planning; Puerto Rico
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 60
Authors:
Joaquin Villanueva, Gustavus Adolphus College
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Abstract
This presentation draws on the work of Dixa Ramírez and Lorgia García Peña to critically examine the “phantom places” that haunt the archivo de la puertorriqueñidad – official archives collected, organized, consulted, and read to support and advance dominant myths of the Puerto Rican nation. These myths reproduce patriarchal, whitened mestizo, and heteronormative narratives that silence Black, queer, indigenous, and women’s voices in national histories. Nevertheless, these ghosts of Puerto Rican erasure repeatedly re-appear in the archive through what I call “phantom places”. This critique is set forth against my current research which explores the origins of the Puerto Rico Planning Board (PRPB) in the 1940s and 1950s. I primarily consulted the Rafael Picó collection, a collection fully embedded within the logics of the archivo de la puertorriqueñidad which contains the personal papers of the first president of the PRPB. Absent from the collection are the voices of residents of El Fanguito, a slum cleared, that is, erased from the landscape, by Picó and the PRPB in the 1950s. I read this archivo with the ghost of El Fanguito always present, a technique which allows me to resist the temptation to reproduce historical silences and hegemonic national myths. Ph
Phantom places against archival power: The Puerto Rican Planning Board and the ghost of El Fanguito
Category
Virtual Paper Abstract
Description
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