2. Activist-scholarship and legal mobilisations in colonial settings

The term activist-scholarship has been conceptualised in various ways ( Canning et al., Reference Canning, Martin and Tombs2023), generally referring to knowledge-production that bridges the divide between academia and activism, challenging traditional academic boundaries while directly engaging with marginalised communities. This form of scholarship rejects the notion that research should be detached or value-neutral, centring instead on the experiences of those affected by structural inequalities.

In the early 2000s, a significant exchange between Munger (Reference Munger2001), Ewick (Reference Ewick2001), Nelson (Reference Nelson2001), Lempert (Reference Lempert2001) and Calavita (Reference Calavita2002) explored the role of activism in socio-legal research. They recognised that law and society scholarship had historically developed in opposition to legal formalism and positivist research, aspiring instead to be socially and politically engaged. Emphasising the need to address people’s lived experiences with law and power structures, these scholars grounded socio-legal research in the social realities it seeks to understand and transform. This critique has also been present in other disciplines, such as critical criminology where Belknap (Reference Belknap2015) advocated for developing activist criminology, which should engage with sociopolitical struggles for justice. Key publications, like the Emerald International Handbook of Activist Criminology (Canning et al., Reference Canning, Martin and Tombs2023), further explore how critical criminology can contribute to activism and social change.

Central to these discussions is how scholars can leverage their academic position to promote social and political transformation through research, teaching and service (Goyes Reference Goyes2016). Activist-scholarship produces knowledge with and for those directly affected by sociopolitical and economic inequalities, often in collaboration with grass-roots movements (Hale Reference Hale2008; Lennox and Yıldız, Reference Lennox and Yıldız2020). By prioritising the voices of those most impacted by injustice, it contests the divide between theory and praxis, elevating knowledge generated by social movements and marginalised communities to legitimate scholarship.

Lennox and Yildiz (Reference Lennox and Yıldız2020) argue that activist-scholarship transforms the relationship between researcher and researched, employing diverse methodological approaches that emphasise sustained engagement with communities throughout the research process. This approach challenges conventional scholarly detachment, producing research with activists rather than about them and questioning what is legitimate knowledge and who has the authority to produce it.

Unlike public intellectuals, who engage primarily through media and debate, activist-scholars demonstrate solidarity with grass-roots campaigns aimed at progressive change (Lennox and Yıldız, Reference Lennox and Yıldız2020). Activist-scholarship encompasses both activists conducting research within movements and scholars pursuing activism-oriented research. While it resists a singular definition, it shares a focus on the rights and lived experiences of the oppressed. Centring marginalised forms of knowledge aims to challenge the power structures perpetuating inequalities and advancing justice and equality. This scholarship dismantles the binary between theory and praxis, recognising their mutual reinforcement; without connection to marginalised groups’ lived experiences, research risks becoming abstract and practically irrelevant.

I adopt Lennox and Yildiz’s (Reference Lennox and Yıldız2020) conceptualisation of activist-scholarship, applying it to the Puerto Rican experience. My scholarship places critical socio-legal and anticolonial scholarship at the forefront, seeking to unravel the structures of exploitation in the US–Puerto Rico colonial relationship. Puerto Rican activist-scholarship has long been rooted in anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles. While contemporary efforts to promote transparency, confront corruption and strengthen democratic governance and the existing rule of law may not always explicitly align with these historical anticolonial movements, they often draw on tools developed through these traditions to engage in social mobilisations.

Unlike law and society scholarship debates, in which activist-scholarship was viewed with scepticism (Calavita Reference Calavita2002; Ewick Reference Ewick2001; Munger Reference Munger2001), Puerto Rican anticolonial scholars have embraced activist-scholarship as a necessary component of sociopolitical movements. There is a tradition of anticolonial and socio-legal mobilisation dating from the early twentieth century. For instance, Puerto Rican lawyers, scholars and public intellectuals played central roles in anticolonial movements, using local, federal and international legal mobilisation to challenge US imperial control (Atiles Reference Atiles2019). Public intellectuals played an influential role in shaping political and legal discourse, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, when a new generation of scholars at the University of Puerto Rico embraced this approach, producing knowledge with and for social movements engaged in the struggle for self-determination. This tradition has manifested primarily through legal mobilisations and the strategic use of law to enact social change. Puerto Rico has a well-established tradition of cause lawyering,Footnote ⁸ especially in defence of anticolonial, pro-independence activists criminalised by the state. Lawyers have also played a key role in advocating for Puerto Rico’s decolonisation at the United Nations (UN), mainly through the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, where the archipelago’s status continues to be a topic of discussion due to these legal and political efforts (Atiles Reference Atiles2019).

As Puerto Rico’s economic and financial crisis has deepened in recent years, a new wave of activist-scholarship has emerged, opposing the FOMB and its austerity measures. These activists have also focused on transparency, access to information and anti-corruption efforts as mechanisms to challenge the US and Puerto Rican governments’ hegemonic narratives of crisis. These mobilisations are not the only form of activist-scholarship taking place in Puerto Rico in recent years, where we can find activist-scholarship in socio-environmental, feminist, pro-independence, anti-debt and anti-austerity movements. These legal mobilisations have been crucial in resisting austerity measures imposed by the Puerto Rican government and the US-appointed FOMB, as well as demonstrating that colonial governance is the root cause of the crisis. Central to this activism is the push for access to public information, which seeks to democratise knowledge and disrupt entrenched power relations. This new generation of activist-scholars challenges neoliberal power structures by exposing the corrupt and criminogenic practices that contributed to the crisis, positioning transparency as a vital tool in the broader fight for social justice.

In this context, the constitutional right to access public information should be understood as a product or result of activist-scholarship and the sustained efforts of anticolonial movements and civil society organisations. While not as immediately visible as other socio-legal mobilisations within the broader anticolonial struggle, recognising this right has become pivotal in re-shaping knowledge-production dynamics and resistance against colonial legality. As counter-intuitive as this looks, by struggling for the right to access information, these movements have managed to limit the operation of the colonial state. The following section provides an overview of how the right to access public information has evolved in Puerto Rico.

3. The constitutional right to access public information in Puerto Rico as oppositional politics

Members of civil society organisations agree on the importance of the constitutional right to access public information in anti-austerity and anti-corruption mobilisations in Puerto Rico. This right has enabled civil society organisations to develop litigation strategies to hold the government accountable and expose the social impact of colonial austerity policies.

The Puerto Rican Constitution recognises the right to access information as an extension of the right to free speech.Footnote ⁹ Ramos Hernández (Reference Ramos Hernández2016) notes that during the 1950 Constitutional Convention, some delegates proposed including a separate article expressly recognising the right to access information independent of free speech, but this effort was unsuccessful. The Code of Civil ProcedureFootnote ¹⁰ also grants citizens the right to inspect and copy public documents. Notably, Puerto Rican jurisprudence concerning this right was developed mainly before the enactment of the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1967.

However, the expansion of this right was not limited to legal codification; it also required legal mobilisation and scholarly activism. Legal scholars like Efrén Rivera Ramos, whose 1975 law review article influenced activist-scholarship around the right to access information, have been pivotal. Similarly, Luis José Torres and Carlos Ramos HernándezFootnote ¹¹ argue in our interviews that this right is deeply entwined with the historical repression of Puerto Rican pro-independence and anticolonial movements by the US and Puerto Rican governments. The legal development of the right to access information was primarily driven by anticolonial activists, mainly through the efforts of victims of colonial state violence and their families to shed light on the circumstances that led to a series of political assassinations in the 1970s. As Carlos Ramos Hernández notes in our interview, there are essential contradictions in developing this right due to anticolonial activism. He states:

In this sense, the right to access information must be understood within contemporary colonial society’s contradictory and sometimes paradoxical reality. The state aims to maintain structures of exploitation and wealth extraction amid a multilayered economic, political and humanitarian crisis. Thus, the right to access information functions as a tool – among other socio-legal and political tools – that enables anticolonial and sociopolitical movements to challenge the seemingly all-encompassing governmental structure that enforces colonial subordination. It is within this context that the right to access information must be considered as a counterpart to Puerto Rico’s long history of colonial state terrorism.

The right gained further significance after the Puerto Rica Supreme Court’s (PRSC) ruling in Soto v. Secretary of Justice (1982). In this case, Pedro Juan Soto and Ángeles Rivera Castillo requested documents regarding the killing of anticolonial activists Carlos Soto Arriví and Arnaldo Darío Rosado by Puerto Rican police in El Cerro Maravilla (1978). Despite the Department of Justice’s attempt to withhold the information, the court ruled in favour of the plaintiffs, recognising the constitutional rank of the right to information and establishing a standard of strict scrutiny that requires all legislation to favour the people’s right to know (Ramos Hernández Reference Ramos Hernández2016).Footnote ¹²

Other landmark cases further expanded this right. In Noriega v. Hernández Colón (1988), the PRSC addressed the issue of ‘Las Carpetas’, illegal files compiled on pro-independence activists by the Puerto Rican police (Atiles Reference Atiles2019; LeBrón 2017). The court ordered the release of these documents, reinforcing the public’s right to access information. Similarly, Ortiz Rivera v. Bauermeister (2000) clarified procedural requirements for requesting public records, affirming the PRSC’s consistent protection of the right to access information. Nevertheless, there have been setbacks. In Nieves Falcón v. Junta de Libertad Bajo Palabra (2003), lawyer and activist-scholar Luis Nieves Falcón sought access to documents related to pardons issued by former governor Carlos Romero Barceló, who is associated with the political assassinations of Soto Arriví and Rosado in Cerro Maravilla. The court ruled that these documents were confidential, marking a rare limitation on the right to access information.

Civil society organisations have also mobilised this right to challenge state violence and police brutality. Oscar Serrano, lawyer, journalist and co-founder of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI), pointed out in our interview that the CPI’s first cases involved requests for police guidelines on video recording demonstrators, which revealed the absence of such policies.Footnote ¹³ Another case sought footage recorded by the Puerto Rican police on students’ and activists’ participation in the 2010 and 2011 University of Puerto Rico student strikes. Though the police eventually provided some materials, they failed to deliver fully the requested information – a recurring issue in my research.Footnote ¹⁴ The Puerto Rican government’s inconsistent record-keeping, worsened by austerity measures and disinvestment in public archives, further complicates efforts to hold the state accountable.

These mobilisations for the right to access information in the context of colonial state crimes attest to the use of law to resist state denial and cover-ups (Cohen Reference Cohen2001). Scholar-activists not only contribute to the development of the constitutional right to information but, in their efforts to obtain access, also build a distinct oppositional politics that challenges the official narratives of state violence and state crimes against pro-independence activists. In other words, these mobilisations develop mechanisms and strategies to construct a counter-memory of state atrocities and crimes. These strategies of counter-memory production are evident across various sociopolitical mobilisations, including anti-corruption, anti-austerity and pro-transparency movements.

In the wake of Puerto Rico’s economic crisis, the scope of legal mobilisations for the right to access information expanded. Organisations such as the CPI and Proyecto began requesting financial, economic and policy-related documents from the Puerto Rican government and the FOMB. Between 2009 and 2019, Proyecto filed seventeen cases, a significant number targeting economic and financial information. This shift marks an important broadening of the right to access information, which now includes investigating the causes and actors involved in Puerto Rico’s public debt crisis.

CPI and Sembrando Sentido have also worked to democratise the data obtained through legal mobilisations, collaborating with scholars, progressive think tanks and media outlets to contextualise and disseminate this information. Many interviewees emphasised that these efforts aim to foster civic engagement, confront corruption and ensure compliance with the law. Transparency, particularly concerning the FOMB, has become a focal point for some civil society organisations, as these legal mobilisations expose the criminogenic dynamics underlying Puerto Rico’s multilayered crisis management.

4. Proyecto de Acceso a la Información and the legal mobilisations for the access to information

As a law professor and co-director of the law clinic, Luis José Torres pointed out during our interview that Proyecto was established in 2008 through a collaborative agreement between the Inter American University Law School and the CPI. Proyecto is a law clinic composed of law faculty and law students, and it often collaborates with journalists and other members of civil society. Proyecto has an important pedagogical component to its operations, seeking to prepare law students in access to information and litigation. Thus, this initiative was designed to provide legal assistance not only to the CPI but also to researchers, organisations and journalists working on issues of transparency and accountability.

Proyecto offers legal support in both state and federal law. Some of its members have even brought cases before the US Supreme Court to limit the harmful effects of colonial austerity measures.Footnote ¹⁵ Rooted in activist-scholarship, Proyecto exemplifies cause lawyering and the strategic use of litigation to challenge the opacity of Puerto Rican governance. Many of these legal mobilisations stem from the collaborative strategies of the Proyecto, CPI and other civil society organisations. Its work has significantly impacted Puerto Rico’s legal landscape, advancing the constitutional right to access public information to promote transparency and accountability, and democratising crucial information regarding Puerto Rico’s multilayered crisis.

Carlos Ramos Hernández, a member of Proyecto at the time of our interview, described the organisation’s legal mobilisations for the right to access information as part of three broader objectives: impact litigation, civic education and legislative advocacy. As he explained during our interview, their work is centred on high-impact litigation, designed to shift the legal landscape through strategic cases: ‘That I file a lawsuit, almost like a test case, thinking about the result – we don’t know where it’s going, but if it goes well, we’re going to change the state of things. I see it a bit like that. Yes, cause lawyering. Rebel lawyering 100%. That’s what I think we do.’

Similarly, Luis José Torres (2019) emphasised the role of cause lawyering in their mobilisations for access to information. He situated their efforts within the broader tradition of strategic litigation, stating that they see themselves as ‘activists and operators of the law, but activists within the law’. He explained further:

Torres’s reflections highlight the inherent politicisation of legal processes and the strategic nature of their engagement. For Proyecto, legal mobilisations are designed to challenge entrenched systems of power. As Torres noted, access to information cases can be a vehicle for catalysing change outside the courtroom.

This approach to legal mobilisation underscores Proyecto’s efforts to push the boundaries of transparency and accountability. Torres observed that the timing of these cases, the political climate and judicial sensitivities have often favoured their work, noting that ‘it is not politically viable for the government to handle these cases in a way that is too antagonistic to the country’.

The importance of legal mobilisations for transparency in Puerto Rico is further evidenced by the numerous cases brought by Proyecto on behalf of civil society organisations. However, these efforts have been met with resistance from the local government, which has attempted to curtail access to information. For instance, on 1 August 2019, just before former governor Ricardo Rosselló’s resignation became effective, his administration enacted the Transparency and Expedited Procedure for Access to Public Information Act (Law 141). While presented as a framework for the constitutional right to access information, Law 141 introduced limitations to accessing government records, raising concerns among transparency advocates.Footnote ¹⁶

As Minet (Reference Minet2021) notes, Law 141 has introduced several new limitations, including persistent delays between requests and information delivery, which remain substantial despite new timelines. Although the law theoretically formalises the process, its ten-day response period and an additional ten-day extension option have given government agencies leverage to delay the release of documents. Public relations officials often use this built-in timeframe to stall or even avoid fulfilling requests despite having the documents readily available. Second, the misuse of exceptions by agencies to deny information requests from the outset. Third, there is a lack of penalties for non-compliance by officials or agencies that do not fulfil their duties to provide access to information. Fourth, there is a lack of proactive publication of data. While Puerto Rico’s constitutional law mandates public access to information for all citizens, Law 141 has yet to deliver on this promise.

In tandem with these limitations, the CPI and Carlos Ramos Hernández (Reference Ramos Hernández2022) published a report in October 2022 demonstrating the systemic lack of governmental compliance with Law 141. The report evaluated compliance across the executive branch, its 120 agencies and seventy-eight municipalities, explicitly focusing on the performance of Public Records Officers, who are responsible for processing requests for public records. The report concluded that the Puerto Rican government’s implementation and enforcement of Law 141 were inconsistent and inadequate. In our interview, Ramos Hernández argued that the austerity measures imposed by the FOMB and the Puerto Rican government hindered the effective execution of the law, as financial resources were insufficient to hire the personnel necessary to ensure transparency. He also highlighted a prevailing culture of opacity within the government, further obstructing information access.

Law 141 reflects global patterns in freedom of information laws that allow governments to promise greater transparency while maintaining control over the flow of information (Ackerman and Sandoval-Ballesteros Reference Ackerman and Sandoval-Ballesteros2006; Berliner Reference Berliner2014; Donaldson and Kingsbury Reference Donaldson and Kingsbury2013). These neoliberal assumptions about transparency often require citizens and activists to master bureaucratic processes to audit the state effectively (Hetherington Reference Hetherington2011; Sharma Reference Sharma2013). Although transparency has been framed as a bureaucratic virtue, its limitations are evident, especially in colonial contexts like Puerto Rico, where state actors seek to preserve systems of impunity under the guise of openness. Law 141 therefore legitimises a transparency regime that maintains structures of power rather than dismantling them.

Despite these limitations, Torres and his colleagues have strategically used legal recourse to bypass the constraints of Law 141. Torres explained that in cases of significant public interest, where the government refuses to disclose information likely to provoke public discussion and mobilisation, Proyecto resorts to filing writs of mandamus, a legal remedy that predates Law 141. This approach allows them to challenge governmental opacity outside the confines of Law 141. Torres noted, ‘We always must evaluate the type of case we have and how we are going to process it.’ He emphasised that while Law 141 has neither significantly worsened nor strengthened the right to access information, the constitutional foundations for this right, established in Soto v. Secretary of Justice (1982), continue to guide the courts.

Proyecto’s strategic use of law is evident in its litigation record. Since the enactment of Law 141, Proyecto has brought thirty cases against the Puerto Rican government. Of these, fourteen followed the procedures outlined by Law 141, while sixteen bypassed the law entirely through writs of mandamus, petitioning the courts to compel the government to release the requested documents.

Proyecto and its collaborators have demonstrated the power of activist-scholarship in re-shaping Puerto Rican legal practices, mobilising knowledge-production and legal tools to challenge state secrecy and opacity. This form of activist-scholarship goes beyond traditional legal practice by strategically using litigation and legal mobilisation to confront the opacity embedded in Puerto Rican governance, especially under colonial austerity regimes. Proyecto’s efforts reflect a broader struggle for democratic transparency, as accessing public information empowers civil society organisations, anticolonial movements and the public to articulate oppositional politics rooted in demands for justice and accountability.

Concrete examples of Proyecto’s legal mobilisation in support of civil society organisations include a request for information from the Department of Justice on behalf of Sembrando Sentido regarding the Registry of Persons Convicted of Corruption (Act 2 of 2018). This request and subsequent litigation revealed that the Registry was largely non-existent, leading Sembrando Sentido and other civil society organisations to push for new anti-corruption legislation (Atiles Reference Atiles2024); a request for information from the Department of Health on behalf of CPI regarding excess mortality following Hurricane Maria and during the COVID-19 pandemic; and a request to the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DEDC) on behalf of CPI about tax incentives granted under Act 22 of 2012 and Act 60 of 2019 (CPI v. Cidre Miranda 2021–24). After three years of litigation, Puerto Rican courts ordered the DEDC to disclose information about the beneficiaries of these tax incentives.

In accessing public records and exposing governmental secrecy, these legal efforts enable activists and scholars alike to reveal the dynamics of colonial state power, particularly how austerity policies disproportionately harm marginalised communities. Proyecto equips grass-roots movements with the knowledge and legal framework needed to contest the colonial state’s imposition of austerity, dispossession and exploitation by making the state’s decision-making processes and financial dealings visible. This access to information challenges the neoliberal governance structures that uphold impunity and foster a culture of resistance by providing civil society and grass-roots organisations with the tools to demand transparency and accountability from the state.

Proyecto’s legal mobilisations are also a direct intervention in knowledge-production, systematically challenging the state’s refusal to provide public information and disrupting the culture of secrecy that shields government actions from scrutiny. There are, however, limitations and contradictions in these mobilisations, as my interviewees acknowledged and as I have discussed elsewhere (Atiles Reference Atiles2025). For instance, while these mobilisations supply movements and activists with crucial information to confront the state, the use of official channels can simultaneously reinforce state legitimacy and entrench state power. This duality can be critiqued for its potentially depoliticising effects on the one hand and for reinforcing judicial authority on the other.

Nonetheless, within the colonial context of Puerto Rico’s multilayered crisis, these legal mobilisations serve to interrupt the harsh mechanisms of wealth extraction enabled by the colonial regime and expose hidden forms of exploitation. They empower the public to resist unjust systems, particularly under conditions of colonial austerity. Beyond legal mobilisations, Proyecto attests to scholar-activism by contributing to the transformation of Puerto Rico’s political and economic landscape by engaging in knowledge-production, training law students, building solidarity and mounting challenges to state power.

5. Sembrando Sentido: anti-corruption bills, knowledge-production and activist-scholarship

Sembrando Sentido, a transparency, anti-corruption and accountability organisation founded in 2020, is the second civil society organisation this article addresses. Its research revolves around public procurement, contracting, public expenditures and holding government actors accountable. In collaboration with scholars and legal experts, the organisation crafted four anti-corruption bills subsequently introduced to the Puerto Rican legislature. Over the past three years, I have engaged in participant observation and active collaboration with Sembrando Sentido and other civil society organisations working on transparency and anti-corruption measures in Puerto Rico.

It is important to highlight that Puerto Rico’s legislative process allows civil society organisations and other non-governmental actors to propose bills for legislative consideration. However, this mechanism requires co-ordination with members of the legislative branch, as there is no direct route for civil society to introduce bills independently. This process, though indirect, has nonetheless facilitated the introduction of legislation initiated by civil society organisations. Following this principle, Sembrando Sentido, Somos Más,Footnote ¹⁷ and a group of scholars worked together to draft a series of anti-corruption bills, which were then presented to the legislature.

The bills addressed a range of anti-corruption measures. The first bill proposed amendments to the Organic Act of the Office of Government Ethics of Puerto Rico (Act 1 of 2012) and the Anticorruption Code for the New Puerto Rico (Act 2 of 2018). Its key provisions included extending the Contractors’ Code of Ethics to the legislative and judicial branches, prohibiting political donations from individuals with government contracts, preventing revolving-door practices and restricting the involvement of individuals convicted of corruption-related offences in public contracting. The bill also aimed to establish a public, digital and updated registry of civil actions against the state.

The second bill sought to amend Act 154 of 2018, also known as the ‘Law on Fraudulent Claims Against Government Programs, Contracts, and Services of Puerto Rico’. This bill aimed to strengthen the whistleblowing process for reporting corruption, secure additional rights for whistleblowers and mandate education for public employees, contractors and citizens regarding anti-corruption reporting procedures. The third bill expanded the ‘Registry of Individuals Convicted of Corruption’, integrating it with federal and state records of a similar nature and ensuring public access through the Puerto Rican Department of Justice.Footnote ¹⁸

The fourth bill introduced amendments to the Anticorruption Code aimed at improving the co-ordination and strategies of the Anti-Corruption Interagency Group, ensuring the inclusion of civil society representatives in the group’s work and establishing an Anti-Corruption Observatory. This observatory was designed to diagnose patterns and factors that foster government corruption and propose strategies to combat them.

Initially, Sembrando Sentido and Somos Más sought to develop an entirely new Anticorruption Code to replace Act 2 of 2018. However, as the drafting process progressed, it became clear that a more targeted approach – splitting the proposed reforms into four distinct bills – was more feasible. This intense, two-year-long process involved thoroughly studying the existing anti-corruption legislation and the Anticorruption Code and extensive discussions about its limitations in addressing corruption in Puerto Rico. The drafting process was a collaborative effort involving civil society members, scholars based both in Puerto Rico and the US and legal experts. The drafts were continuously reviewed and revised based on feedback from external anti-corruption experts, scholars and lawyers. Interestingly, the drafting process did not actively involve grass-roots movements or communities. The bills were primarily developed by civil society organisations, scholars and legal experts, which raises issues regarding the representability of these efforts and their connection with the affected communities. The bills were introduced into the Puerto Rican House of Representatives in 2023, but members of the Puerto Rican legislature did not consider them.

In my previous work with Proyecto, I engaged primarily as a researcher, applying traditional research methods such as semi-structured interviews and ethnographic fieldwork to analyse the dynamics of activist-scholarship from an observational standpoint. This approach allowed me to evaluate the processes, challenges and impacts of socio-legal mobilisation without directly influencing the strategies or outcomes. My position as an observer helped me explore activist-scholarship from a somewhat removed, analytical perspective, highlighting the intersections of law, politics and grass-roots activism. However, it also limited my engagement with the organisations, as my primary focus was documenting and understanding their actions rather than actively participating.

In contrast, my involvement with Sembrando Sentido marked a significant shift toward activist-scholarship. I assumed a more engaged role, actively contributing to the organisation’s legislative initiatives and anti-corruption and transparency policy-making. This transition was transformative for my academic journey, requiring me to reconsider my role as a socio-legal scholar and balance critical analysis with hands-on participation. I attended meetings, reviewed drafts and responded to feedback from external reviewers, all while supporting the drafting process without leading it. My role as an activist-scholar in this context involved navigating complex dynamics – particularly reconciling my scepticism about the effectiveness of legislative reforms in a colonial system rife with corruption with my commitment to supporting the organisations’ goals, especially considering the history of Puerto Rico’s Anticorruption Code, which was enacted by the Ricardo Rosselló administration, a governor who later resigned following corruption allegations (Atiles Reference Atiles2022).

This shift allowed me to see first-hand the challenges and contradictions inherent in activist-scholarship. For instance, I grappled with questions about whether my involvement in drafting anti-corruption legislation genuinely advanced substantive policy changes or whether it inadvertently served the political aspirations of certain civil society actors. Such tensions underscore the complexities of activist-scholarship, where the boundary between academic inquiry and practical on-the-ground engagement often blurs. Yet, through my active participation, I also came to appreciate the potential of activist-scholarship to enact tangible change, however incremental or symbolic, in confronting systemic corruption in Puerto Rico.

Ultimately, drafting these anti-corruption bills exemplifies the essence of activist-scholarship in action. Unlike my research-focused role with Proyecto, my collaboration with Sembrando Sentido required a sustained, engaged partnership. Although we did not succeed in enacting the bills, the experience pushed me to blend socio-legal critique with active policy interventions, embodying a commitment to scholarship and activism that continues to shape my approach to socio-legal research and advocacy.