Sarah Molinari
Sarah Molinari is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the Graduate Center. Her work addresses post-hurricane recovery justice in Puerto Rico and how grassroots efforts attempt to reconfigure what debt and disaster recovery mean and for whom. Funded by the National Science Foundation, her ethnographic dissertation project examined the movement for a citizen debt audit and post-Maria politics of mutual support organizing. Sarah’s most recent publication, “Authenticating Loss and Contesting Recovery” appears in the edited volume Aftershocks of Disaster (Haymarket Books, 2019). She is also interested in engaged digital/public humanities work and is the co-founder of the Puerto Rico Syllabus (#PRSyllabus).
Collected Work
“Disaster Fraud Prevention by Exclusion: Property, Homeownership, and Individual Housing Repair Aid in Puerto Rico”
Drawing on ethnographic research in Puerto Rico from 2018 to 2019, government documents, media, legal advocacy sources, and a comparative lens with post-Katrina New Orleans, the essay argues that institutional valuations around property and ownership produced eligibility exclusions and foreclosed access to recovery for some. The federal government's strict requirements around proving homeownership for individual home repair aid ultimately undermined the local organization and lived experiences of property owners in Puerto Rico, delegitimized ownership claims, and created barriers to accessing aid.