Overview
Residents of Vieques, a small island just off the east coast of Puerto Rico, live wedged between an ammunition depot and a live bombing range for the US Navy. Since the 1940s when the navy expropriated over two-thirds of the island, residents have struggled to make a life amid the thundering of bombs and rumbling of weaponry fire. Like the army's base in Okinawa, Japan, the facility has drawn vociferous protests from residents who challenged US security interests overseas. In 1999, when a local civilian employee of the base was killed by a stray bomb, Vieques again erupted in protests that have mobilized tens of thousands of individuals and transformed this tiny Caribbean Island into an international cause celebre. Katherine T. McCaffrey gives a complete analysis of the troubled relationship between the US Navy and island residents. She explores such topics as the history of US naval involvement in Vieques; a grassroots mobilization - led by fishermen - that began in the 1970s; how the navy promised to improve the lives of the residents - and failed; and the present-day emergence of a revitalized political activism that has effectively challenged naval hegemony.
Full Product Details
Author: Katherine T McCaffrey
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Imprint: Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.397kg
ISBN: 9780813530918
ISBN 10: 0813530911
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 18 June 2002
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of print, replaced by POD
We will order this item for you from a manufatured on demand supplier.
Reviews
"McCaffrey's outstanding analysis movingly narrates this community's longstanding anguish and accurately situates the Vieques movement in the larger context of U.S. military policy in the Caribbean and Puerto Rico's unresolved status quandary. Those interested in understanding the Vieques crisis will find Military Power and Popular Protest an indispensable work.--Amflcar Antonio Barreto ""author of Vieques, the Navy, and Puerto Rican Politics"""
McCaffrey's outstanding analysis movingly narrates this community's longstanding anguish and accurately situates the Vieques movement in the larger context of U.S. military policy in the Caribbean and Puerto Rico's unresolved status quandary. Those interested in understanding the Vieques crisis will find Military Power and Popular Protest an indispensable work. -- Amflcar Antonio Barreto * author of Vieques, the Navy, and Puerto Rican Politics *
Author Information
KATHERINE T. MCCAFFREY is an assistant professor of anthropology at Montclair State University, New Jersey.
