Dolor y rabia: The passionate politics of women’s activism in Vieques, Puerto Rico

Abstract

Based on ethnography conducted during the height of anti-military struggle in Vieques, Puerto Rico, in the early 2000s, this article examines Viequense women’s intense forms of suffering and correspondingly powerful forms of collective action. It explores how the affective dimensions of Vieques women’s dolor (suffering) and rabia (indignation) became catalysts for their politicization. The article posits that the gendered and intersubjective experience of confronting illness in a physical landscape devasted by military pollution can impel women to pose new questions and ideas regarding disease etiology. This questioning, in turn, has the potential to rearticulate their identities in political terms. At the intersections of political ecology, medical anthropology, and environmental justice, this article concludes that in confronting the ubiquity of dolor y rabia in their own and their families’ bodies, Viequense women found the strength to fight back against the most powerful military in the world.