This paper engages the aesthetic modes of racial discourse in the Hispanophone Caribbean in order to understand the economy of desire which reproduces ethnonational representation in Puerto Rico. In doing so, this paper performs a double move that follows the significance of the aesthetic as an imposition of ethnonationalism on one end, and illuminates its interpellation of desire on the other. As such, this paper creates a push and pull effect that encapsulates a frame of reference for multiple histories and geographies that both reproduce and refuse ethnonationalism in general in Puerto Rico.
Part of the Special November Series, Afrolatin Coalitions in Culture and the Arts
Sponsored by: LATS and Latin American Music Center
