ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the predictions and calculations of difference that defined the Puerto Rican child as one that needed to be reformed. The primary objective of this chapter is to examine the discontinuities within the history of discourses that ‘constructed’ the Puerto Rican student as the object of reflection and action. In doing so, the discursive formations of difference that were made possible in Puerto Rico's education at the turn of the 20th century are considered. Secondly, this chapter analyses the ways in which institutional practices gave legitimacy to those conceptualisations of difference and to what counted as valuable knowledge. Thirdly, this chapter examines the ways in which these discourses of difference provided educators with information about whom the Puerto Rican child was, is, or could become. These epistemological and ontological reference points shifted under the first years of civil colonial rule, which constructed a state of liminal governmentality in Puerto Rico's education and society. These assemblages of discourses made difference intelligible and informed how people governed themselves and governed others. In Puerto Rico's case, sustained avoidance became a tactic for governing, which has kept Puerto Rico in a state of suspended sovereignty since the turn of the 20th century.
