Gabriela Quijano

Gabriela Quijano was born and raised in Puerto Rico. She is currently completing her doctoral degree in anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Quijano has long been interested in engaging with political economy perspectives, social reproduction theory, and decolonial approaches in the anthropological study of economic practices in Latin America and the Caribbean. She works with emerging economies, alternative economic movements, and experiences of economic self-management and entrepreneurship, moving away from capitalocentric representations of economic diversity. Her dissertation work focuses on economic recovery practices emerging in Puerto Rico’s current (post)disaster context. She has recently turned to the study of human/non-human relations to look at economic activity developing in Puerto Rico and determining recovery initiatives following the strike of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 and the following natural emergencies, including the earthquakes experienced by the end of 2019 and early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic starting in March of 2020, and the passing of Hurricane Fiona in September of 2022. Her interests include colonialism and coloniality, feminist movements, food studies, and post-humanist and animalist movements.