Speaker Series: Jose Atiles
Crisis by Design offers an interdisciplinary sociolegal analysis of the role of law, emergency powers, and anticorruption mobilizations in Puerto Rico’s ongoing multilayered crisis. From the 2006 public debt crisis and the government’s bankruptcy in 2016 to the devastation of Hurricanes Irma, María, and Fiona, the 2020 earthquakes, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the anticorruption uprisings of 2019, Puerto Rico’s recent history has been shaped by overlapping crises that have deepened inequality and citizen vulnerability. Rather than viewing these crises as isolated events, this talk argues that they are integral to the legal structure of colonialism, which actively produces and sustains disaster conditions.
Drawing on eight years of qualitative research—including ethnography, semi-structured interviews, archival analysis, and policy review—Crisis by Design examines the legal and political mechanisms that manufacture and manage crisis in Puerto Rico. The book introduces three key concepts: the colonial state of exception, which frames US colonialism as a permanent legal structure of inclusion/exclusion; colonial legality, which captures the legal practices, policies, and economic frameworks sustaining Puerto Rico’s crisis management; and legal interruptions, which describes civil society efforts to mobilize transparency laws and accountability measures as a form of resistance. These mobilizations, together with grassroots demonstrations, or what I term colonial ruptures, challenge the repetitive temporality of colonial legality, underscoring a radical possibility for rendering the colonial legal structure in Puerto Rico ineffective.
By critically engaging with law, power, and resistance in Puerto Rico, Crisis by Design contributes to global debates on colonialism, legal governance, and crisis management in the Global South.
To register, contact Sophie Kofman at skofman@abfn.org.
Jose Atiles is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and College of Law (by courtesy) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His sociolegal and criminological research focuses on the colonial context of Puerto Rico, aiming to elucidate the role of state and corporate crimes, law, and emergency powers during periods of crisis. He is the author of Crisis by Design: Emergency Powers and Colonial Legality in Puerto Rico (Stanford University Press, 2024), and Islands of Exception: Law, Empire, and Offshore Finance in the Caribbean (Cambridge University Press, 2026). Atiles currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crimes and is a member of various other editorial boards. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Law and Society Association.