An Agroecological Response to the Militarized Urban in Vieques, Puerto Rico
Between 1942 and 1950, the United States Navy forcefully occupied and constructed three military facilities, known collectively as the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility, on the Puerto Rican island-municipality of Vieques. In the process, the Navy dispossessed 70% of the land and displaced 50%...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156136 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7868-5842 |
| _version_ | 1811094239610667008 |
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| author | Ouadani, Oussama |
| author2 | Crockett, Karilyn |
| author_facet | Crockett, Karilyn Ouadani, Oussama |
| author_sort | Ouadani, Oussama |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Between 1942 and 1950, the United States Navy forcefully occupied and constructed three military facilities, known collectively as the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility, on the Puerto Rican island-municipality of Vieques. In the process, the Navy dispossessed 70% of the land and displaced 50% of the population, artificially precipitating Vieques’s shift from a rural to urban society. After an errant bomb killed a local, intense grassroots mobilizations succeeded in ousting the Navy from Vieques in 2003, but the extensive ecological and social harm it generated was devasting and enduring. This thesis will contextualize within Vieques the production of what Palestinian urban scholar Abreek-Zubiedat (2023) novelly terms the militarized urbanism(s) and highlight the island’s contemporary agroecological movement in response to it. This thesis then traces how the militarized urban emerged and operated in Vieques vis-à-vis displacement- resettlement logics, the imposition of spatial prohibitions and ecocide, and the gamification of land and society. Finally, I offer possibilities for reimagining our ecological and urban spaces in Vieques and beyond. Complimenting my embodied, archival, and theoretical research methodology is an affective treatment of the island’s militarized history through Pedro Juan Soto’s novel Usmaíl, published and set in mid-20th century Vieques. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:57:02Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/156136 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:57:02Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1561362024-08-15T03:05:16Z An Agroecological Response to the Militarized Urban in Vieques, Puerto Rico Ouadani, Oussama Crockett, Karilyn Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning Between 1942 and 1950, the United States Navy forcefully occupied and constructed three military facilities, known collectively as the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility, on the Puerto Rican island-municipality of Vieques. In the process, the Navy dispossessed 70% of the land and displaced 50% of the population, artificially precipitating Vieques’s shift from a rural to urban society. After an errant bomb killed a local, intense grassroots mobilizations succeeded in ousting the Navy from Vieques in 2003, but the extensive ecological and social harm it generated was devasting and enduring. This thesis will contextualize within Vieques the production of what Palestinian urban scholar Abreek-Zubiedat (2023) novelly terms the militarized urbanism(s) and highlight the island’s contemporary agroecological movement in response to it. This thesis then traces how the militarized urban emerged and operated in Vieques vis-à-vis displacement- resettlement logics, the imposition of spatial prohibitions and ecocide, and the gamification of land and society. Finally, I offer possibilities for reimagining our ecological and urban spaces in Vieques and beyond. Complimenting my embodied, archival, and theoretical research methodology is an affective treatment of the island’s militarized history through Pedro Juan Soto’s novel Usmaíl, published and set in mid-20th century Vieques. M.C.P. 2024-08-14T20:10:03Z 2024-08-14T20:10:03Z 2024-05 2024-06-28T21:02:41.940Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156136 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7868-5842 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Ouadani, Oussama An Agroecological Response to the Militarized Urban in Vieques, Puerto Rico |
| title | An Agroecological Response to the Militarized Urban in Vieques, Puerto Rico |
| title_full | An Agroecological Response to the Militarized Urban in Vieques, Puerto Rico |
| title_fullStr | An Agroecological Response to the Militarized Urban in Vieques, Puerto Rico |
| title_full_unstemmed | An Agroecological Response to the Militarized Urban in Vieques, Puerto Rico |
| title_short | An Agroecological Response to the Militarized Urban in Vieques, Puerto Rico |
| title_sort | agroecological response to the militarized urban in vieques puerto rico |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156136 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7868-5842 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ouadanioussama anagroecologicalresponsetothemilitarizedurbaninviequespuertorico AT ouadanioussama agroecologicalresponsetothemilitarizedurbaninviequespuertorico |