“Spatial Relationships,” Colonialism, and Debt

Learning for Life @ Gustavus

Professor Joaquin Villanueva of the Gustavus Department of Geography talks about growing up in Puerto Rico and his “political awakening” in college there, his path from business major to languages and geography, the transformative experience of studying abroad in France, the diversity and interdisciplinarity of his discipline, turning a “geographic lens” on the French state’s treatment of African immigrant populations in suburban neighborhoods of Paris, the origins of the ongoing Puerto Rican debt crisis and its consequences for urban San Juan, and his pitch for Geography and liberal education