Título en español.

Abstract

This paper analyzes some historical and recent issues of the archaeological practices that are taking place in Puerto Rico and other eccentric contexts in order to expose the multiple vectors of colonialism that are embedded today in the structure and praxis of the discipline. Some of the recent manifestations of postcolonial thought (and its respective critiques) are used to contextualize the atypical socio-political situation of Puerto Rico, which has been recently characterized as a "postcolonial colony." We suggest that the socio political context in which the archaeology of Puerto Rico was created and developed influenced enormously the structure of the discipline in the island, which has led to a colonized production of knowledge, narratives, and representations of our ancient history. We propose, as an alternative against the naturalization of colonialism in the practice of archaeology in the island and other eccentric territories, the articulation of a new moral and ethical order within the discipline that we have named "archaeologies of liberation".