Rocío Zambrana, "Colonial Debts: The Case of Puerto Rico" (Duke UP, 2021)
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What is the central argument of Colonial Debts about debt as a technique of neoliberal coloniality?
Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps, so I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the Best Education Podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share a map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast online.
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Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Sarah Tyson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado Denver, and I'm co-host of the channel along with Kerry Figdor and Robert Talese. Together, we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books, drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Rocio Zambrana, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. Her book, Colonial Debts, The Case of Puerto Rico, is just out from Duke University Press. What can debt reveal to us about coloniality and its undoing? In Colonial Debts, Zambrana theorizes the way debt has been used as a technique of neoliberal coloniality in Puerto Rico
producing profit from death on the island. With close attention to the material practices of protesters who have fought that destruction of life for profit, Zambrana argues that decolonization entails political economic subversion and transformative interruption of the hierarchies of race, gender, and class that fuel and are sustained by colonization. She shows us how organizing pessimism nourishes hope. Rocio, welcome to New Books and Philosophy.
Hi, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me.
So let's get started by talking about your background and how you got to this project about debt and its relationship with coloniality.
Okay. So this project is, in a way, it's a very old project. So I grew up in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, and stayed for college in my hometown at the University of Puerto
Rico,
Mayaguez. And I, so when I was initially a psychology student, but then switched to philosophy when I realized that that was a thing, a discipline and a practice
that
one could actually do. And so, you know, I started, I was introduced to philosophy through an ethics course that Anaida Santori Jorge taught. And, you know, rather than teaching your standard Aristotle, Kant, you know, and so on, she taught philosophy. Foucault and Arendt and of institutional violence in Latin America. And I just thought, you know, this whatever is happening in this classroom, that's what I want to do for always. So so I wrote a thesis, was really wanting to write a thesis on the transition from from Spanish to U.S. colonial rule. And I did that despite the fact that some other, I had some pushback from other members of that department at that time who thought that this wasn't kind of philosophy proper.
Of course, Santori was just incredibly supportive and wonderful. And so I wrote about, you know, colonialism and Puerto Rico, that this was, you know, 2000. And at the University of Puerto Rico, and then, you know, went to the New School for Social Research to do a master's and then a PhD in philosophy.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the central argument of Colonial Debts about debt as a technique of neoliberal coloniality?
0:00–7:45
2
How does Rocío Zambrana’s personal and academic background shape her analysis of Puerto Rico’s debt crisis?
7:45–16:50
3
In what ways does the book link debt to the continuation of colonial power structures in Puerto Rico?
16:50–27:07
4
How does the concept of coloniality of power explain the racial, gender, and class hierarchies reinforced by debt?
27:07–37:31
5
What role do grassroots protests and “organizing pessimism” play in challenging the debt‑driven neoliberal order?
37:31–47:48
6
How do feminist collectives use debt‑related actions (e.g., bank embargoes, sit‑ins) to confront gender‑based violence and austerity?
47:48–58:49
7
What does Zambrana mean by “decolonial reparations,” and how does she envision reversing the creditor‑debtor relationship?
58:49–1:08:38
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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