A “primera gobernadora constitucional”: Relativizing indexical and successional orders in Puerto Rico

Abstract

This paper examines public clashes over the indexical meanings of the register of governors in a non-sovereign context. It demonstrates how the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's naming of the first non-elected female governor elicited people's stances on the appropriate and effective semiotic entailment of “gobernadora” ([feminine] governor) within a sedimented androcentric and androcolonial order. The public's misrecognition of this new subjectivity prompted the production of a new shibboleth, “primera gobernadora constitucional” (first [feminine] governor, constitutionally recognized), making this naming ritual felicitous. I argue that people's investment in making meaningful the indexes of the state sustains the Commonwealth's political legitimacy.