Marysol Fernández Harvey is a rising senior (2021) at Brown University, concentrating in Economics and Comparative Literature. Having grown up in Puerto Rico, Marysol is dedicated to community lead, public service work, with a particular interest in anti-colonial advocacy for a fairer system of governance on the island. Puerto Rico is currently an unincorporated territory of the United States, lacking sovereign agency over its political, economic, and social future. As Puerto Ricans demand reform, a call for Constitutional Assemblies has risen above the political clamor as an opportunity to carry out institutional change. Marysol will explore the political possibility of a process of Constitutional Assemblies in Puerto Rico in an exercise that is informed by knowledge accumulated by theorists and practitioners around the world, as well as by the on the ground circumstances of the Puerto Rican reality today.

Her Royce project is two-pronged, entitled “Constitutional Assemblies in Puerto Rico: A Study on Revolutionary Representation” it will produce literature that is useful to advocates and organizers working right now. The first will deal with the general political theory surrounding Constitutional Assemblies, focusing on the socio-political implications of building a state through this mechanism and using case studies of countries who have attempted, both successfully and unsuccessfully, to carry out this process. The second will involve a series of conversations with stakeholders, political activists, Puerto Rican academics, and other experts to inform a thorough analysis of the circumstances in Puerto Rico that work both toward and against a successful process of representative state-building.