Challenges and oportunites faced by critical legal studies journal

AutorJaime F. Villeta García - Ivelisse De Jesús Rivera - Glenda Santiago-Marrero
Páginas344-351

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JAIME F. VILLETA GARCÍA; IVELISSE DE JESÚS RIVERA; GLENDA J. SANTIAGO-MARRERO

PONENCIA1159

Good morning! My name is Jaime Villeta García, Director & Editor-in-Chief of the Critical Legal Studies Journal of the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico (UIPR), School of Law. Accompanying me today are two Associates Directors of the Law Journal, Ivelisse De Jesús Rivera and Glenda Santiago-Marrero. This is part of the “CLAVE Gang”, as Prof. Mahmud has affectionately referred to us. We will be presenting the workshop Challenges and Opportunities Faced by Critical Legal Studies Journals.

I will begin by narrating the history of our Critical Legal Studies Journal; I’ll be brief and concise. Ivelisse De Jesús Rivera will express the obstacles and accomplishments that our journal has faced. The obstacles have been many, but our perseverance and commitment has been greater. Glenda Santiago-Marrero will narrate the state that we are now in and what the future holds. After she finishes, there will be an open dialogue, for questions, comments, and constructive criticisms. Before I start the history lesson: I can assure you that the Critical Legal Studies Journal’s future is brighter than ever.

The Critical Legal Studies Journal is the first and only critical law review in Puerto Rico. It was initially developed during a board and friends retreat in Vieques, Puerto Rico in 2003 under the name CLAVE: Counterdisciplinary Notes on Race, Power & the State. As Charles Venator states in the Law Journal Volume 4, Introduction Note: “[t]his publication sought to give the LatCrit organization an independent voice that broke away from traditional law school journal molds. CLAVE was originally conceptualized to explore the ways in which the state, through law, furthers the production of national, gendered, and racialized subjects.”1160

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The founding Board consisted of renowned intellectuals such has: Judith Butler, Ward Churchill, Peter Fitzpatrick, Mary Romero, Saskia Sassen, Colin Crawford, Angela Harris, Yanira Reyes, Francisco Valdes, and many others.1161 Some of these ‘crits’ are in attendance here today, our Editorial Staff will like to give them our most sincere appreciation for their vision in creating this exceptional and essential critical legal journal. They conceptualized the name CLAVE in accordance to the beat at the heart of Latin music is clave, a rhythm brought with the African diaspora from the Yoruba, Congo and other West African peoples to the Spanish-colonized Caribbean. They described the clave rhythm as the key stone, the wedge-shaped stone placed at the top of an arch which locks all the other stones in place.1162 In its foundation, CLAVE sought to establish conversations that disrupt the traditional boundaries of nation, discipline, and academic hierarchy by exploring the many modes of resistance to state power, symbolized by the steady beat of the clave through colonialism, imperialism, and the diaspora. This is still part of its mission.

The journal took material form when the UIPR, School of Law decided to sponsor a print version along with a short-lived digital version managed and coordinated by LatCrit board members. It is imperative that I express one of the reasons why we are here as part of this excellent conference and that is to strengthen our ties with LatCrit and to work together in order to revive the digital version.

Currently, law students with the consultation of two advising professors, Prof. Pedro Cabán Vales and Prof. Myrta Morales Cruz, manage the law review. This composition allows the students to provide an independent voice from traditional law reviews by publishing articles from a critical legal perspective, rethinking the constitutive relationship between the law, the state and society. Also, it seeks to open up spaces for democratic critique and participation by exposing the relationships of power and subordination with an objective critique.

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In order to appeal to a much larger demographic, the formal branding of the journal was slightly altered. From being only recognized as CLAVE: counterdisciplinary notes on race, power & the state, now the law review is nationally recognized as ‘Revista de Estudios Críticos del Derecho’, which translates to Critical Legal Studies Journal. It is still popularly referred to by students, lawyers and judges as CLAVE, a tendency which we have...

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