Reparaciones de infraestructura

reinventando la justicia restaurativa en Haití y Puerto Rico

Autores/as

  • Mimi Sheller WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20336/rbs.974

Palabras clave:

ciudadanía de infraestructura, colonialidad, racialización, Caribe, blockchain

Resumen

Las infraestructuras tienen una capacidad intrínsecamente desigual para conectar y proporcionar a algunas personas determinados bienes y flujos de información, mientras que privan de derechos y deshumanizan a otras a través de los propios procesos de (des)conexión de elementos de la condición urbana. Las injusticias infraestructurales moldean épocas, horizontes temporales y ciclos vitales. Existe una falta de sincronía entre los horizontes temporales de durabilidad, materialidad, ingeniería y financiarización de las infraestructuras y los de las necesidades inmediatas de las personas y comunidades vivas, pero también es necesario un horizonte temporal más amplio que reconozca la demanda de reparaciones históricas, más allá de las necesidades inmediatas. La justicia reparadora infraestructural exige la eliminación de la violencia de las determinaciones infraestructurales que han sostenido durante mucho tiempo la supremacía blanca, deshumanizando a las personas negras e indígenas, así como a otras personas de color. Quienes no tienen acceso al derecho a reclamar que el Estado les proporcione lo básico para vivir deben ir más allá de la restauración o la reparación, buscando en su lugar reparaciones infraestructurales y justicia restaurativa como condiciones materiales para vivir. Este ensayo reflexiona sobre algunas de las tácticas de reparación flexibles, provisionales e infraestructurales que han surgido en Haití y Puerto Rico, donde los sistemas de infraestructuras públicas han fracasado estrepitosamente. En Haití, las tácticas de apropiación han involucrado a comunidades (y pandillas) que se vinculan a sistemas fracturados donde hay poca provisión estatal. En Puerto Rico, el desastre ha llevado a las organizaciones de base a pedir una recuperación justa, pero también a los empresarios de blockchain a aprovechar oportunidades en el extranjero para escapar del Estado. Ambos casos demuestran la precariedad, el poder, las oportunidades y los riesgos ocultos en los sistemas descentralizados frente a sistemas de infraestructura fragmentados.

Biografía del autor/a

Mimi Sheller, WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

Dr. Mimi Sheller EDUCATION AB History and Literature Harvard University MA Sociology and Historical Studies New School for Social Research PhD Sociology and Historical Studies New School for Social Research

Dr. Mimi Sheller is the Dean of The Global School and is an internationally recognized scholar and higher education leader, with fifteen years of executive leadership across academic units, research centers, and professional organizations. 

Citas

Anand, N. (2015) ‘Leaky states: water audits, ignorance, and the politics of infrastructure’, Public Culture, 27(2): 305– 30.

Anand, N. (2017) Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Anand, N., Gupta, A. and Appel, H. (eds) (2018) The Promise of Infrastructure, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Appel, H. (2019) The Licit Life of Capitalism: US Oil in Equatorial Guinea, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Arthur, C. and Dash, J. (eds) (1999) Libète: A Haiti Anthology, London: Latin America Bureau.

Auyero, J. (2012) Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina, London and New York: Duke University Press.

Auyero, J. and Swistun, D.A. (2009) Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Beckett, G. (2019) There Is No More Haiti: Between Life and Death in Port- au- Prince, Oakland: University of California Press.

Bonilla, Y. (2018) ‘For investors, Puerto Rico is a fantasy blank slate’, The Nation, 28 February. Available from: https:// www.thenat ion.com/ arti cle/ arch ive/ for- invest ors- pue rto- rico- is- a- fant asy- blank- slate/ [Accessed

November 2022].

Bonilla, Y. and Klein, N. (2018) ‘Six months after Maria, residents resist efforts to turn island into privatized Bitcoin playground’, Democracy Now, 21 March. Available from: https:// www.democ racy now.org/ 2018/ 3/ 21/ six_ months_ a fter _ mar ia_ r esid ents _ res ist [Accessed 15 November 2022].

Bowles, N. (2018) ‘Making a crypto utopia in Puerto Rico’, New York Times, 2 February. Available from: https:// www.nyti mes.com/ 2018/ 02/ 02/ tec hnol ogy/ cry ptoc urre ncy- pue rto- rico.html [Accessed 15 November 2022].

Crandall, J. (2019) ‘Blockchains and the “Chains of Empire”: contextualizing blockchain, cryptocurrency, and neoliberalism in Puerto Rico’, Design and Culture, 11(3): 279– 300.

Dawson, A. (2017) Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change, London: Verso.

de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley: University of California Press.

De Coss- Corzo, A. (2021) ‘Patchwork: repair labor and the logic of infrastructure adaptation in Mexico City’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 39(2): 237– 53.

de Souza e Silva, A., Sutko, D.M., Salis, F.A. and de Souza e Silva, C. (2011). ‘Mobile phone appropriation in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’, New Media & Society, 13(3): 411– 26.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903) The Souls of Black Folk, New York: New American Library.

Easterling, K. (2016) Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space, London: Verso.

Fanon, F. (1990) The Wretched of the Earth, trans C. Farrington, London: Penguin.

Ferguson, J. (2006) Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Freeman, C. (2000) High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Gandy, M. (2008) ‘Landscapes of disaster: water, modernity, and urban fragmentation in Mumbai’, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 40(1): 108– 30.

Gandy, M. (2014) The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity, and the Urban Imagination, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2001) Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, London: Routledge.

Hagen, J. and Diener, A.C. (eds.) (2022) Invisible borders in a Bordered World: Power, Mobility, and Belonging, London and New York: Routledge.

Horst, H.A. (2013) ‘The infrastructures of mobile media: towards a future research agenda’, Mobile Media and Communication, 1(1): 147– 52.

Insight Caribbean (2021) ‘Jimmy Chérizier, alias “Barbecue”’. Available from: https:// web.arch ive.org/ web/ 202 2071 4223 639/ https:// insig htcr ime.org/ caribb ean- organi zed- crime- news/ jimmy- cheriz ier- alias- barbe cue/ [Accessed 21 June 2022].

Johnston, J. (2022) ‘They fooled us’, Center for Economic and Policy Research, 7 February. Available from: https:// cepr.short hand stor ies.com/ they- foo led- us/ index.html [Accessed 15 November 2022].

Katz, J.M. (2013) The Big Truck that Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kitchin, R. and Dodge, M. (2011) Code/ Space Software and Everyday Life, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kitchin, R., Lauriault, T. and McArdle, G. (eds) (2018) Data and the City, Abingdon: Routledge.

Kivland, C.L. (2020) Street Sovereigns: Young Men and the Makeshift State in Urban Haiti, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Klein, N. (2018) The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes On the Disaster Capitalists, Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Lemanski, C. (ed) (2019) Infrastructures of Citizenship: Practices and Identities of Urban Citizens and the State, Abingdon: Routledge.

Lemanski, C. (2020) ‘Infrastructural citizenship: the everyday citizenships of adapting and/ or destroying public infrastructure in Cape Town, South Africa’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 45(3): 589– 605. Lewis, J.S. (2020) Scammer’s Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

McKinney, J. (2022) ‘Consortium to Rebuild Puerto Rico’, updated 4 November 2022. Available from: https:// www.trvst.world/ char ity- civil- soci ety/ con sort ium- to- rebu ild- pue rto-r ico/ [Accessed 6 January 2023].

McKittrick, K. (2006) Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Murphy Marcos, C. and Mazzei, P. (2022) ‘The rush for a slice of paradise in Puerto Rico’, New York Times, 31 January. Available from: https://w ww. nyti mes.com/ 2022/ 01/ 31/ us/ pue rto-r ico- gen trifi cat ion.html [Accessed 15 November 2022].

Parks, L. (2014) ‘Walking Phone Workers’ in The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities (eds) P. Adey, D. Bissell, K. Hannam, P. Merriman and M. Sheller, New York: Routledge, pp 243– 55.

Parks, L. and Schwoch, J. (eds) (2012) Down to Earth: Satellite Technologies, Industries, and Cultures, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Parks, L. and Starosielski, N. (eds) (2015) Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures, Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Ragnedda, M. (2020) Enhancing Digital Equity: Connecting the Digital Underclass, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Renteria, N. (2021) ‘El Salvador plans first “Bitcoin City”, backed by bitcoin bonds’, Reuters, 21 November. Available from: https://w ww.reuters.com/ mark ets/ rates- bonds/ el- salva dor- plans- first- bitc oin- city- bac ked- by- bitc oin- bonds- 2021- 11- 21/ [Accessed 21 June 2022].

Rodney, W. ([1972] 2018) How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, London: Verso.

Sharpe, C. (2016) In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Durham, NC: Duke

University Press.

Sheller, M. (2000) Democracy After Slavery: Black Publics and Peasant Radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica, Warwick: Macmillan Caribbean; Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Sheller, M. (2003) Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies, London: Routledge.

Sheller, M. (2009a) ‘Infrastructures of the imagined island: software, mobilities, and the architecture of Caribbean paradise’, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 41(6): 1386– 403.

Sheller, M. (2009b) ‘The new Caribbean complexity: mobility systems,

tourism and the spatial rescaling’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 30(2): 189– 203.

Sheller, M. (2012) Citizenship from Below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Sheller, M. (2013) ‘The islanding effect: post- disaster mobility systems and humanitarian logistics in Haiti’, Cultural Geographies, 20(2): 185– 204.

Sheller, M. (2014) Aluminum Dreams: The Making of Light Modernity, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Sheller, M. (2018) ‘Caribbean futures in the offshore Anthropocene: debt, disaster, and duration’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(6): 971– 86.

Sheller, M. (2019) ‘Locating technologies on the ground in post- earthquake Haiti’, in R. Wilken, G. Goggin and H.A. Horst (eds) Location Technologies in International Context, Abingdon: Routledge, pp 129– 42.

Sheller, M. (2020) Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Sheller, M. (2021) ‘The geopolitics of offshore infrastructure- space: remediating military bases, tourist resorts, and alternative island futures’, in M. Mostafanezhad, M. Cordoba- Azcárate and R. Norum (eds) Tourism Geopolitics: Assemblages of Infrastructure, Affect, and Imagination, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp 283–305.

Sheller, M., Galada, H.C., Montalto, F.A., Gurian, P.L., Piasecki, M., Ayalew, T. and O’Connor, S. (2013) ‘Gender, disaster and resilience: assessing women’s water and sanitation needs in Leogane, Haiti, before and after the 2010 earthquake’, wH2O: The Journal of Gender & Water, 2(1): 18– 27.

Simone, A. (2004) ‘People as infrastructure: intersecting fragments in

Johannesburg’, Public Culture, 16(3): 407– 29.

Simone, A. (2013) ‘Cities of uncertainty: Jakarta, the urban majority, and inventive political technologies’, Theory, Culture & Society, 30(7/8): 243 –63.

Simpson, I. (2021) ‘Cultural political economy of the start-u p societies imaginary’, PhD dissertation, McGill University, Montreal.

Simpson, I. and Sheller, M. (2022) ‘Islands as interstitial encrypted geographies: making (and failing) cryptosecessionist exits’, Political Geography, 99: art 102744. Available from: https:// doi.org/ 10.1016/ j.pol geo.2022.102 744 [Accessed 14 November 2022].

Star, S.L. (1999) ‘The ethnography of infrastructure’, American Behavioral

Scientist, 43(3): 377– 91.

Starosielski, N. (2015) The Undersea Network: Sign, Storage Transmission, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Thiel, P. (2009) ‘From scratch: libertarian institutions and communities – the education of a libertarian’, Cato Unbound, 13 April. Available from: https:// www.cato- unbo und.org/ 2009/ 04/ 13/ peter- thiel/ educat ion- libe rtar ian [Accessed 15 November 2022].

Tormos- Aponte, F., García- López, G. and Painter, M.A. (2021) ‘Energy

inequality and clientelism in the wake of disasters: from colorblind to affirmative power restoration’, Energy Policy, 158: art 112550. Available from: https://d oi. org/ 10.1016/ j.enpol.2021.112 550 [Accessed 15 November 2022].

Trouillot, M.-R . (2021) Trouillot Remixed: The Michel-R olph Trouillot Reader, (ed) Y. Bonilla, G. Beckett and M.L. Fernando, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Wacquant, L. (2016) ‘Revisiting territories of relegation: Class, ethnicity and state in the making of advanced marginality’, Urban Studies, 53(6): 1077– 1088.

Watlington, C. (2019) ‘Tales from the cryptos: blockchain visionaries and old colonial scams in Puerto Rico’, The Baffler, January. Available from: https:// the baffl er.com/ outbur sts/ tales- from- the- cryp tos- wat ling ton [Accessed 15 November 2022].

Wynter, S. (2003) ‘Unsettling the coloniality of being/ power/ truth/ freedom: towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation – an argument’, CR: The New Centennial Review, 3(3): 257– 337.

Publicado

26-10-2023

Cómo citar

Sheller, M. (2023). Reparaciones de infraestructura: reinventando la justicia restaurativa en Haití y Puerto Rico. Revista Brasileña De Sociología, 11(28), 148–178. https://doi.org/10.20336/rbs.974

Número

Sección

Dossier (In)movilidades socioespaciales