La Colectiva Feminista en Construccion as a Cultural Agent

    As the people of Puerto Rico have been beset by abuse and calamity, La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción (The Feminist Collective in Construction or La Cole) has emerged. Their website presents “a political organization that is based on the legacy of black and decolonial feminism” (ColectivaFeminista.org). As an anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal coalition, they act against State-imposed systems of oppression through political education and training, strategic alliances with other activist collectives, and mobilization and direct action. According to an analysis of their work entitled “La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción: Puerto Rico’s antiracist & feminist movement”, La Cole epitomizes the concept of pensar-hacer, meaning theory and action. As defined in the article, “the notion of pensar-hacer argues for a decolonial turn that centers theorizing other ways of being and knowing, while simultaneously engaging in political action” (Tejada 2021). This idea of pensar-hacer is evidenced through two different strategies that La Cole implements to effect change.

The first is their Radical Feminist School (ESFRA) , which was established in 2017 as a pedagogical mission for “the development of analytical, theoretical and practical tools based on black feminist epistemologies and decolonial methodologies” (ColectivaFeminista.org). Since its founding, the school has had nine distinct “cycles”, each involving a different theme and an array of participants from different locales and levels of education. The sessions are structured like workshops, with a set reading list, discussion questions to be prepared prior to every class, and educated professionals to guide and facilitate the reading and discussion. The most recent topic was “Independence and Beyond. Radiography of the Independence and Socialist Movement in Contemporary Puerto Rico”, and took place in October of 2023 (ColectivaFeminista.org). The ESFRA serves as a space where knowledge is reclaimed. The pedagogical systems imposed by Euromodernity espouse a logic of opposing categories (male/female, white/black, civilized/savage, etc.) from which a hierarchy emerges, with one group being perceived as more human than the other. In the ESFRA workshops, this hegemonic tradition of epistemology is disrupted by “a reading list that centers the knowledge production and lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, women and colonized people”, through which the members of each workshop can self-articulate beyond the categories dictated by colonizing powers and challenge hierarchical ways of thinking (Tejada 2021). The focal point is the amplification of Black and Indigenous voices from the Global South that are normally suppressed. Moreover, the wisdom and experience of the participants are legitimized and supported as they are encouraged to contribute to the production of knowledge. Thus, “La Cole accomplishes the thinking portion of the pensar-hacer framework by pursuing other ways of knowing that contest Eurocentric epistemologies and ontologies” (Tejada 2021). 

Regarding action, La Colectiva Feminista excels in organizing protests, creating agitation and pressure within the political sphere, and inspiring solidarity and connectivity within their network. In response to the rising number of femicides and the inaction of the State, they began campaigning in 2018 for the declaration of a State of Emergency against gender violence and continued this effort until 2021 when success was realized. Additionally, they organized women’s strikes to fight against the austerity measures imposed in Puerto Rico by the local and federal governments and demanded the ousting of former governor Ricardo Roselló (for misogyny, homophobia, and cruel insensitivity toward the victims of Hurricane Maria) and former mayor Hector O’Neill (a perpetrator of sexual assault and other crimes). However, a major emphasis of their work is based on strengthening communal bonds. Instead of merely combating the perpetuity of capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and other values disseminated by the State, their work is designed to embrace the people affected. Most recently, they hosted a “solidarity hug” for a woman and her family who stood in danger of being displaced from their ancestral home by a developer. During this event, people gathered to chant, make posters, and stand hand-in-hand around the house of the family in a symbolic gesture of community protection and resistance. In this sense, La Cole values emotional solidarity, as well as political, within their community. They sustain each other through community meals, celebrations, and other activities that support inclusion, fostering an environment where the personal and political are inter-related and individualism without inter-connectivity is discouraged. In this way, they share similarities with Bolivian collective Mujeres Creando, who frame all of their work in relation to the concept of well-being. Accordingly, one way in which La Cole might continue to extend their outreach is to offer protection services to women or individuals at risk from gender violence in Puerto Rico, which is a practice of Mujeres Creando. Another creative project of Colectiva Feminista is Prieta Caribe, which “combining the Afro-Brazilian rhythm with anti-capitalist, feminist and black affirmation slogans we protest all related forms of oppression in Puerto Rico” (ColectivaFeminista.org). Videos show people carrying torches, dancing, playing drums, and chanting, incorporating visual, auditory, and tactical elements in a way very reminiscent of the artistic performance group LasTesis. 

In conclusion, considering both the theoretical work of the Radical Feminist School and the concrete, on-the-street work of the collective, combining elements of activism and political pedagogy (pensar-hacer) serves to put thought and practice back together in a way that will inspire continual growth within La Cole, both ideologically and influentially, and simultaneously promote its longevity. As such, pensar-hacer is taken a step further to pensar-hacer-transformar, meaning to think, to do, and to transform (Tejada 2021).