Casa Pueblo: A Puerto Rican Model of Self-Governance - Paperback

by Alexis Massol González (Author), Ashwin Ravikumar (Translator), Paul Schroeder Rodríguez (Translator)

As a community-based organization in the mountains of south-central Puerto Rico, Casa Pueblo implements alternatives to extractive capitalism that do not rely on governments or distant non-profits. In this book, Alexis Massol-González, Casa Pueblo's founder, reflects on its extraordinary forty-year history of experiments with community self-governance. Massol-González received the prestigious Goldman Prize (popularly known as the Green Nobel) for the organization's initiatives to protect the environment, affirm cultural and human values, and create sustainable economic alternatives. This collective translation was undertaken in the spirit of the organization and offers a chronological account of Casa Pueblo's evolution from a small group of concerned citizens to an internationally recognized model for activism.

Author Biography

Ashwin Ravikumar is Assistant Professor of environmental studies at Amherst College. He carries out advocacy-oriented research and organizes for racial, economic, and climate justice. He has published in World Development, Global Environmental Change, Conservation Letters, and Land Use Policy.

Paul A. Schroeder Rodríguez is Professor of Spanish and of Latinx and Latin American Studies at Amherst College. He is the author of Latin American Cinema: A Comparative History (California University Press, 2016).

Alexis Massol González is co-founder and director of Casa Pueblo. In 2002 he received the Goldman Prize, also known as the environmental Nobel Prize, for his work in protecting Puerto Rico's mountain forests. He lives in Adjuntas with his wife and Casa Pueblo co-founder Tinti Deyá-Díaz.