NIRV Participant, Katsy Rivera-Kientz, to present her academic work at 43rd Annual Caribbean Studies Association Conference

Congratulations to Katsy who will be presenting her academic work in the 43rd Annual Caribbean Studies Association Conference at Havana, Cuba this June! Her work examines the role of social media in the mobilization of the Puerto Rican diasporic community in response to Hurricane María’s disaster recovery efforts. It is focused on efforts that have been organized, launched and ongoing, by Puerto Ricans within the Greater Boston Area, using social media at some point of the process.

This annual conference proposes integrating education, culture, and emancipatory thought as the fundamental reflexive axes for furthering the process of decolonisation in the Caribbean. All three concepts deepen our understanding of the re-appropriation and recuperation of memory— be it individual, collective, social or historical— in these territories. The conference aims to foster dialogue and brainstorm about these three topics in order to rethink and reconstruct paradigms, to relocate margins and excluded spaces, and to understand the diversity and complexity of this region’s peoples.