« Settler structures and their resilient organisation: Sandiso Bazana, ‘Revisiting the Marikana massacre through anti-blackness: An Afropessimism perspective’, Organization, 32, 2, pp. 247-275
Settler milk and honey: Tamar Novick, Milk and Honey: Technologies of Plenty in the Making of a Holy Land, MIT Press, 2023 »

Settler colonialism in Puerto Rico today: Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, ‘Managing life and managing death: the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, bio/necropolitical production, and a new wave of settler colonialism’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2025

24Feb25

Abstract: In this article, we pair biopolitics (the production of social life) with necropolitics (the production of death), as we maintain that they operate together in Puerto Rico where the management of life in its totality and ‘the subjugation of life to the power of death’ run concurrently. This creates the climate for a catastrophic shift in population. We argue that contemporary colonial and legal maneuvers act to protect the political status of Puerto Rico as a Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is kept running so it can make live a foreign population at the expense of the local population that is being made/left to die or disappear. This combination is shaping a third wave of settler colonialism on the island(s). Thus, when referencing biopolitical and necropolitical power in Puerto Rico, we are referring to aspects of Puerto Rico’s status as a legal colony of the United States that have led both to a thriving colonial status and a declining and shifting population.


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