Puerto Rico: National security,economic growth and colonialism

Abstract

Puerto Rico's significance for the US state and imperialism has gradually deteriorated. In the context of recent global changes and new developments in the US political economy the logic that justified colonial control cannot be sustained. However, an array of counteracting political and economic forces are conspiring to overcome the altered material and geopolitical conditions that make evident the need for Puerto Rico's decolonization.

Colonialism has given rise to an array of forces that impedes any changes in Puerto Rico's formal political status. Where once the US state, corporate capital and the dominant political forces in Puerto Rico were in relative agreement on sustaining the colonial enterprise, a new constellation of competing forces has emerged. Within Puerto Rico proponents for the status, quo and those who agitate for statehood have reached virtual electoral parity. Monopoly “capital, primarily in Pharmaceuticals, dominates the local economy. However, it is challenged by North American unions and their congressional allies who seek to rescind the lucrative fiscal policies that account for these firms exorbitant profits. Agencies of the US state and congressional committees are at odds on what needs to be done to sustain an unmanageable, increasingly expensive and anachronistic colony.

This essay presents a framework for examining the array of forces and conditions that continue to erode the colonial relation and that explains colonialism's fragility in the current period of global readjustment.     

DNA-based and taxonomic identification of forensically important Sarcophagidae (Diptera) in southeastern Spain

Studying dipterans at the scene of a death can provide essential information for interpreting the evidence and help to reconstruct the events happened to a corpse in the past. Molecular tools have been employed for identification at specific levels in the cases of cryptic species or poorly conserved specimens. Identification of specimens is essential in forensic entomology since each species has a specific growth rate, which determines the calculation of the minimum post mortem interval (minPMI). In addition, phylogeographic reconstruction within a species can help to differentiate the haplotypes from a geographic area, thereby helping to clarify the possible relocation of a corpse. The morphological identification of Sarcophagidae species is often difficult, especially for the females. This is an important Diptera family since some of its species are among the first to reach a corpse, especially in warm areas. In this study, we compared the sarcophagids found in human corpses in forensic cases in Alicante (southeast of Spain) with specimens collected from baited traps in the same area and surrounding provinces. In total, 189 specimens were collected, comprising 72 from forensic cases and 117 from baited traps. Molecular identification was conducted by sequencing the cox1 mitochondrial gene and analyzing the sequences using ABGD, GMYC, and BIN species delimitation methods. The median joining algorithm in the PopART program was used to construct phylogeographic networks. Eight species in the family Sarcophagidae were identified. The most widely collected species were Sarcophaga argyrostoma and Sarcophaga tibialis. The haplotype networks obtained for these species did not indicate a clear geographic distribution of haplotypes. The S. argyrostoma samples from Alcoy were clearly isolated. The results demonstrated that this method is useful for identifying Sarcophagidae samples in forensic investigations and it can be employed for minPMI estimation.     

Identifying with the Nation: Spain's Left-Wing Citizens in an Age of Crisis

This study analyses the extent, sense, and strategies employed by sympathisers with Spanish state-wide left-wing parties to ‘reconstruct’ their affective ties with the Spanish nation after the ‘monopolisation of patriotism’ by Franco's regime. Such an undertaking is further complicated within the context of economic crisis and intensified peripheral nationalism found in Catalonia and the Basque Country. This article applies qualitative analysis to the discourse of left-wing participants from 11 focus groups held in March 2012 amidst the economic (and political) crisis. As expected, this context of crisis favoured the emergence of explicit discourse on the Spanish nation, providing an opportunity to gain a better understanding of its nature. Findings show that welfare nationalism and social patriotism define the kind of attachment developed by the interviewees towards Spain better than the concept of constitutional patriotism, or any kind of ethnic-cultural feeling of belonging.