Academic literature on the topic 'Cuban socialist state'

AbstractThe Cuban and Sandinista Revolutions stand together as Latin America's two socialist revolutions achieved through guerrilla insurgency in the latter half of the twentieth century. But beyond studies that demonstrate that Cuba militarily trained and supported the Sandinistas before, during, and after their guerrilla phase, and observations that the two countries were connected by the bonds of socialist revolution, the nature of Cuba and Nicaragua's revolutionary relationship remains little explored. This article traces exchanges of people and expertise between each revolutionary state's Ministry of Foreign Relations and Ministry of Culture. It employs diplomatic and institutional archives, personal collections, and oral interviews to demonstrate the deep involvement of Cuban experts in building the Sandinista state. Yet, Cuban advice may have exacerbated tensions within Nicaragua. This article also shows that tensions marked the day-to-day realities of Cubans and Nicaraguans tasked with carrying out collaborations, revealing their layered and often contradictory nature. Illuminating high-level policy in terms of Cuban-Nicaraguan exchanges and how they unfolded on the ground contributes to new international histories of the Sandinista and Cuban revolutions by shifting away from North-South perspectives to focus instead on how the Sandinistas navigated collaboration with their most important regional ally.

AbstractThis article disentangles and explores some commonly made assumptions about egalitarian state-socialist ideologies. Based on the conceptual framework of the multiprinciple approach of justice, it presents the results of an in-depth analysis of (e)valuation patterns of distributive justice in Cuban state-socialism. The analysis mainly focuses on ideational conceptions of distributive justice (just rewards), but it also accounts for distribution outcomes and resulting (in)equalities (actual rewards). The results of the comparative case study of the Cuban framework of institutions and political leaders’ views in two periods of time, the early 1960s and the 2010s, point to (e)valuation patterns that are generally labelled as egalitarian, such as the allocation rules of outcome equality and (non-functional) needs. However, contrary to common assumptions about egalitarian state-socialist ideologies, the results also point to several other patterns, including equity rules as well as functional and productivist allocation rules. I argue that many of these (e)valuation patterns, in their connection to the discursive storyline of the Cuban economic battle, are indeed compatible with egalitarian state-socialist ideology.

This article describes practices of informal digital media circulation emerging in urban Cuba between 2005 and 2010, drawing from interviews and ethnographic research in the city of Santiago de Cuba. The Cuban new media landscape is supported by informal networks that blend financial and social exchanges to circulate goods, media, and currency in ways that are often illegal but are largely tolerated. Presenting two case studies of young, educated Cubans who rely on the circulation of film and television content via external hard drives for most of their media consumption, I suggest that the emphasis of much existing literature on the role of state censorship and control in Cuban new media policy overlook the everyday practices through which Cubans are regularly engaged with Latin and U.S. American popular culture. Further, informal economies have been central to everyday life in Cuba both during the height of the Soviet socialist era and in the period since the collapse of the Soviet Union that has seen a juxtaposition of some market reforms alongside centrally planned policies. In the context of nearly two decades of economic crisis, consumer shortages and a dual economy, Cuban people use both informal and state-sanctioned networks to acquire goods ranging from groceries to furnishings and domestic appliances. Understanding the informal media economy of Cuba within this broader context helps to explain how the consumption of commercial American media is largely uncontroversial within Cuban everyday life despite the fraught politics that often dominates discussions of Cuban media policy.

The author examines the evolution of Cuban medical diplomacy under the governments of Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canel. The author shows that the essence of the Cuban national health system, which developed after the 1959 Revolution, is its accessibility. At the time of collapse of the socialist bloc, the Cuban government managed to maintain and surpass the achieved level of development of medicine. The presence of a large number of medical specialists allows the socialist government of Cuba to organize cooperation with dozens of states around the world. Under the leadership of Castro, the export of medical goods and services has become the main source of foreign exchange earnings and a driver of economic growth, and medical diplomacy has become an important tool of soft power, which is used to form an attractive image of the state among the world community. In doing so, the government combines pragmatism, increasing the cost-effectiveness of the programs, and altruism, providing gratuitous aid to the countries most in need. The main difficulty in developing this direction in Cuba’s foreign policy is associated with the North American embargo. In 2018, the US government launched a large-scale campaign to discredit Cuban medical internationalism. This policy aims to further restrict already limited access to essential resources. The country was also negatively affected by the ‘right turn’ in the region: the neoliberal governments of several countries refused to continue medical cooperation with Cuba. At the same time, the trends of recent years indicate an imminent repetition of the shift to the left, which in the future can significantly strengthen the Cuban positions in the region. In addition, the coronavirus pandemic showed that the world community needs a rapid medical response force with Cuban missions serving as a basis thereof.

This report discusses the efforts of state powers to inflict large-scale societal transformations on local gender and kinship by exploring the relationship between matrifocal gender and kinship structure and the socialist state in Cuba. Cuban gender and kinship relations are approached not only by examining the kinds of daily social interactions that took place amongst ‘lower-class’ Havanian informants, but also via the types of lifecycle rituals celebrated in Cuba: Catholic baptism, girls’ quince-party, weddings and funerals. The report indicates an intriguing contrast between the, in-practice, very mother-centred gender andkinship relations, and the revolutionary state symbology manifesting an idea of a metaphoric patriliny. Keywords: Cuba, gender, kinship, matrifocality, life-cycle rituals

Since the 1990s, the socialist higher education system has faced several reforms oriented to satisfy social, economic, and technological demands. However, little is known about the transformation process of the socialist university system over the past two decades. This study provides a better understanding of the entrepreneurial and innovative transition of universities located in socialist economies. By adopting mixed theoretical approaches, we proposed a conceptual model to understand the social, the innovative, and the entrepreneurial transformation of socialist universities. We revised and tested this model in the context of Cuban universities by implementing a prospective case study approach. Our findings show insights about the transition towards a business model innovation within Cuban universities. The determinants have been state regulations, the closing of the complete cycle from teaching to the commercialization of results, and the creation of hybrid structures to manage knowledge. Consequently, the university is facing managerial challenges related to its ability to explore and exploit its activities to generate social, innovative and economic outcomes. Our results provide practical implications for the university managers and actors involved in the transformation process of Cuban universities.

"This article deals with scarcity of goods, consumption, and the ethics of photographing scarcity of goods in contemporary Cuba. It is based on a six-month ethnographic research conducted in 2015 and 2018 respectively and shows some of the photographs I took during these two visits. In the first part I discuss the scarcity and distribution of goods in and out of socialist environments, differences between capitalism and communism and non-traditional methods of consumption. How do desires of consumption impact people in contemporary communist Cuban society? What is the role of Cuban diaspora in sending so-called capitalist goods to Cuba? It also draws a connecting line between a state-controlled communist economy and specific forms of capitalist entrepreneurship, through the existence of a black market and the distribution of goods between people. The second part of the article questions my position in the field as an outsider who was gradually familiarized with the Cuban understanding of the world more generally, and of consumption specifically. How did locals react to photographs taken by foreigners like me? How can two children share one pair of roller skates and distribute their happiness? Making visible certain aspects of scarcity in contemporary communist Cuban society made me realize that photography has a profound ethical dimension."

In the early 1990s, in the midst of the deepest economic crisis in its recent history, President Fidel Castro proclaimed sustainable development as the new guiding principle for Cuba. This would prove to be a wise move in the context of crisis management.This article explores the shift in Cuba’s state visions of nature and development, which occurred in the wake of the deep crisis unfolding after the breakdown of the Eastern Bloc, on which Cuba heavily depended. This vital threat to the country’s socialist system necessitated far-reaching economic and social policy adjustments, resulting in painful consequences for its citizens. The measures taken in the so-called Special Period demanded a new development vision for their legitimation. The Castro government developed a reformed socialist development model, shifting away from the ideal of Soviet model catch-up modernisation and its instrumental view on nature, towards the paradigm of sustainable development. Based on the analysis of 55 speeches made by Fidel Castro between 1959 and 1996, this radical change in views on nature and development is analysed. This paradigm shift served several political purposes and helped the Cuban leadership navigate through the crisis of the 1990s.

The issue of religious practices within the Chinese diaspora in Cuba is increasingly debated within Chinese studies in Latin America. As the Chinese and African diasporas in Cuba have intermingled ethnically, their religious practices have historically also intermingled. While the rise of Afro-Cuban religions in recent decades is primarily understood as a response to centuries of Spanish colonialism and perceived as a resistance to Eurocentric hegemonic power, this article aims to examine the efforts of the Chinese diaspora to re-evaluate their religions from the same decolonial perspective. This article aims to determine the tendencies of interactions between Chinese religious beliefs and Cuba’s religions before and after the Cuban Revolution, including after the fall of the socialist bloc. Specifically, it examines whether post-revolution state atheism had an impact on the religious beliefs and ethnic heritage of members of the Chinese diaspora. In the 1990s there was a revival of the Guan Yu (关羽) cult which has been often interpreted as a consequence of the economic interests of the Chinese and Afro-Chinese diaspora or as a consequence of the interests of the Cuban government. However, we must also be aware of the broader historical, social and political context at play here.

La tesi analizza il fenomeno dell’economia informale nella Cuba contemporanea. Il mio elaborato, redatto a partire da un’indagine etnografica (12 mesi dal Febbraio 2005 al Marzo 2008), si concentra su ciò che ho definito la “poetica dell’informalità”, ovvero l’insieme di pratiche e discorsi che concorrono nel costituire e strutturare l’“economia informale” così come viene esperita e concepita nella vita quotidiana dei miei interlocutori. Attraverso un’etnografia delle pratiche economiche informali quotidiane di un gruppo di persone residenti all’Avana, (differenti per genere, generazione, posizionamento economico e sociale), mostro come economia informale e vita quotidiana siano così intrecciate che la creatività e l’entusiasmo dei cubani/e, così come le angosce e incertezze esistenziali, sono spesso legate alle tante e variegate esperienze di informalità. Tali esperienze, che includono il mercato nero e le differenti strategie/tattiche (talvolta illegali) per ottenere beni di consumo e valuta forte (ovvero i CUC), trovano espressione nel termine luchar (lottare). Questo verbo polisemico, usato a Cuba per definire tanto l’impegno rivoluzionario che l’inventiva necessaria per procurarsi di che vivere, stabilisce una relazione specifica tra le pratiche ed i discorsi dell’economia informale e in ultima analisi un modo di essere al mondo, una forma di soggettivazione. La lucha segna infatti un punto di incontro tra le pratiche informali e il simbolico, tra gli atti, piccoli e grandi, della quotidianità degli individui, la soggettività e il sistema complessivo della società cubana. Nella mia tesi esploro questo nesso. Che tipo di soggettività emerge in determinate pratiche informali quotidiane? In che relazione stanno le pratiche informali individuali con i cambiamenti sociali ed economici occorsi a Cuba di recente? Con la retorica e l’amministrazione del governo? Con le produzioni discorsive sul capitalismo e sul socialismo che circolano sull’Isola? Intorno e dentro queste pratiche, quali fenomeni, tattiche, significati e investimenti affettivi, concreti e simbolici individuali o di gruppo si ri-producono? Nel ricostruire il contesto dei cambiamenti occorsi a partire dagli anni Novanta e dalle riforme avviate dal Periodo Especial, ho dedicato alcune parti della tesi alla descrizione e all’analisi delle condizioni strutturali attuali dell’economia cubana (politiche e pratiche di consumo, i paradossi della doppia economia e delle riforme del settore del lavoro, la segmentazione dei mercati, il basso potere di acquisto dei salari, ecc.) e delle conseguenze sulla vita quotidiana dei miei interlocutori. Tali conseguenze stanno in stretta relazione con la diffusione e con i meccanismi di funzionamento delle differenti modalità con cui si dispiegano le pratiche informali individuali, e anche con le motivazioni che le persone portano nel giustificare le loro pratiche economiche quotidiane. Tuttavia, l’analisi attenta dell’informalità intesa e concepita come lucha dai miei interlocutori mi ha permesso di scoprire che l’informalità (e un certo tipo di illegalità) a Cuba non consiste solo in un insieme di tattiche individuali volte a superare le difficoltà quotidiane di sussistenza e/o ad ottenere un maggiore grado di comfort nella vita quotidiana, in condizioni materiali più o meno difficili. La lucha a Cuba, e dunque l’informalità così com’è intesa dai miei interlocutori, contiene e permette agli individui di articolare, consapevolmente o meno, un processo di soggettivazione che ha al suo centro una concezione della vita come attiva e resistente, nel corso della quale si deve essere operosi, capaci di cogliere le opportunità, e di districarsi nelle contingenze negative (o percepite come tali) anche adattandosi, ma attivamente e creativamente. Comprendere il significato di luchar in questi termini a Cuba significa anche comprendere, come direbbe Foucault, il rapporto e la co-produzione tra il modo di governare sé e quello di governare gli altri. La concezione di una vita attiva e resistente non è qualcosa di naturale. È invece un processo (storico, culturale, sociale e politico) che entra a far parte della formazione e della disciplina del sé, delle proprie e altrui pratiche e dei propri modi di pensare e di dire. Nel panorama attuale della letteratura antropologica prodotta su Cuba non esistono monografie che con una certa profondità hanno affrontato il tema dell’economia informale. La maggior parte degli studi sull’informalità a Cuba si è concentrata sul fenomeno da un punto di vista soprattutto economico. Pur tenendo in considerazione il quadro teorico di studi antropologici condotti in altre società del mondo, soprattutto in contesti socialisti e post-socialisti, ho cercato di confrontarmi con alcuni lavori che hanno preso in considerazione le recenti trasformazioni dell’assetto economico di Cuba e gli effetti prodotti sulla sua economia e società. In tutta la tesi ho considerato alcuni elementi del discorso economico prodotto su Cuba (dentro e fuori dall’Isola) come “produzioni discorsive” che concorrono insieme ai discorsi e alle pratiche del quotidiano dei miei interlocutori a creare una visione complessiva dell’informalità che comprende anche il suo nesso con l’economia formale, con lo Stato, e con la recente storia della Nazione cubana. In questa direzione con l’analisi etnografica ho mostrato come effettivamente l’informalità (incluso un certo tipo di mercato nero) si articola in simbiosi (e in stretta co-dipendenza) con l’economia pianificata dallo Stato, alterandone il funzionamento ma non necessariamente sovvertendone i fini e i principi che nel tempo sono stati adottati e promossi dalle politiche del governo. Nella mia indagine, ho tentato di non considerare aprioristicamente (magari sulla base di teorie prettamente economiche) le pratiche economiche informali come un elemento sovversivo. Al contrario, ho cercato di comprendere il fenomeno dell’informalità anche dal punto di vista di chi, in questa dimensione quotidiana, vive indubbiamente processi di contestazione e negoziazione con l’assetto politico ed economico attuale del Paese – e con le recenti trasformazioni socio-economiche –, ma non necessariamente in discontinuità e/o in completa rottura e antitesi con il passato e presente progetto del socialismo e della Rivoluzione cubana. Il governo rivoluzionario, dal ’59 ad oggi, ha promosso un modello di soggettività improntato soprattutto alla dignità, all’indipendenza, all’importanza della resistenza, a tutti i costi. Per far questo ha governato con dispositivi, forse contraddittori ma tutt’altro che invisibili o nascosti, la vita quotidiana dei suoi cittadini, innescando particolari processi di soggettivazione. La lucha, l’informalità, è un esempio di questa congiunzione e coproduzione di arti di governare: una delle modalità attraverso le quali strategie istituzionali e tattiche dei singoli convergono. La disciplina e la creatività diventano due dimensioni, forse contrastanti ma correlate, di un processo di etero- ed auto-formazione.

This thesis examines how the recent socio-economic and political arena in Cuba informs the relationship among the idea of population health, national statistics, and the everyday lives of individuals. Post-revolutionary Cuba has used measures of the health of individuals as a metaphor for the health of the body politic, effectively linking the efficacy of socialism and its governmental apparatus to the health conditions of the population. The creation of a model of health care that was informed by the revolutionaries' vision of a new social order, which in turn would help to create an ' hombre nuevo' (new man and new woman), effectively shaped a model of citizenship that was associated with a particular notion of health, and in addition defined a system of socialist values and ideals. Thirty months of ethnographic field research in the city of Havana focused specifically on the Family Physician-and-Nurse Program---an innovative primary health care program in which family physician-and-nurse teams live and work on the city block or in the rural community they serve. Drawing on my ethnographic findings, I explore two key themes. First, I examine how state policy, enacted through the government's public health campaigns, has affected individual lives, changing the relationship among citizens, government institutions, public associations and the state. Secondly, I examine how the collapse of the Soviet bloc (post-1989) and the strengthening of the US embargo is changing the relationship between socialist health-policies and individual practices and how it has redefined how state power becomes enacted through and upon individual bodies. In particular, I examine how individual practices play an important role in the maintenance of Cuba's population-health profile, as individual citizens give priority to their own health care needs, both material (such as food, medicines and medical supplies) and spiritual (including the re-emergence of religious

This Minor Field Study, undertaken as a Bachelor’s Thesis within the field of tourism, examines the role of entrepreneurship in the socialist state of Cuba. The study focuses on the business and ownership of private room renting, called Casas Particulares; examining influencing factors, means and implications of the business. Recent political changes has lead to a more encouraging approach towards private businesses, allowing Casas Particulares to become one of the most common forms of tourist accommodation. From examining the role of tourism entrepreneurship in a strictly regulated country the aim is to develop the knowledge and stereotype perception of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneur. Cuba is developing into a popular destination for tourists. Countless of Cubans are now employed or self-employed within the tourism industry where the Cuban form of Bed & Breakfast, Casas Particulares, is the most frequent profession (Cerviño and Cubillo, 2005). Gilmore and Pine (2007) highlight that individuals more and more crave for authenticity and people seek engagement and personal experiences. Findings suggested that tourists visited Cuba and chose Casas Particulares as accommodation urged by the want to experience the island “before it changes” and to meet the “real” Cuba, i.e. seeking authenticity. Cuba is a country with strong governmental control and regulation where contextual factors have shown to be imperative in the development of entrepreneurship. Holmquist (2009) distinguishes the connection between contextual factors and entrepreneurship through highlighting the context as a determining factor for recognising entrepreneurial ventures, or through changes in the context enabling the recognition. The role of the context can only be acknowledged as crucial for the existence of Casas Particulares, as well as any entrepreneurial activity in Cuba. Engaging in Casas Particulares can be seen as a venture challenging the norm of the Cuban society.

Hundreds of thousands of Haitian agricultural laborers arrived in Cuba to cut cane as the Cuban sugar industry was expanding between the 1910s and the 1930s, and many settled permanently on the island. Historically, Haitian laborers occupied the lowest strata in Cuban society. Until relatively recently, the maintenance of Haitian traditions in Cuba was associated with rural isolation and poverty. Today however, the continuation of Haitian customs is no longer associated with isolation, but exactly the opposite. Cuba's Haitian communities are increasingly linked with cultural institutes, heritage festivals, music promoters, and the tourism industry. In Cuba's socialist economy, "folklore" is a valuable resource that demonstrates the unity of a multi-racial and multi-ethnic nation and attracts tourists. Music, dance, and rituals associated with Vodú have been re-imagined for the public stage. The "folkloric imaginary" creates new careers and opportunities for people of Haitian descent in Cuba. Haitiano-cubanos themselves have found innovative ways to transform the once abject into the now exotic, and are currently gaining a public presence in Cuba through folkloric performance.
African and African American Studies

The thesis deals with the U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba in the years 1958-1965. It analyses sources of U.S.-Cuban hostility at the beginning of the Fidel Castro era. It shows, how the U.S. foreign policy and the beginning of Cold war contributed to polarization as well as radicalization of politics in Cuba. Thus, it analyses the change of a local conflict into the "international civil war". The aim of the thesis is to argue that Cuba influenced the global balance of power between the Soviet Union and the United States at the beginning of 1960's. The introductory chapters summarize the causes of the Cuban Revolution, the U.S. policy toward friendly dictators, mainly toward Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. Next part deals with the guerilla warfare against Batista and the extent of U.S. influence on this insurrection. The thesis uses a multi-archival research of the U.S. as well as Czech and British sources. The comparison of sources shows the extent of independent Cuban actions and helps to comprehend the logic of the Eastern-European foreign policy. The thesis further analyses the U.S. reaction on Cuban Revolution as well as causes and consequences of the Cuban Missile crisis. Moreover, it deals with the possibilities of improvement in the U.S.-Cuban relations. Last but not least it also analyses the...

AbstractThe anti-clerical elements of the Revolution helped Cuba succeed in various indicators (e.g. education quality and coverage, equality, health). The Cuban regime seized, dismantled, and limited the institutional influence of Roman Catholicism on these areas of public life. However, a strong cultural influence of a highly syncretised Roman Catholicism persists in Cuba even if its institutional influence has been curbed. Also, the Communist regime, by adopting Marxism, “threw the baby out with the bathwater” through persecuting all types of religion, including Protestant liberals. Finally, the Cuban regime conveniently turned to Rome to legitimise itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union and to silence Protestantism with a corporatist strategy. The socialist legal tradition had an effect opposite to its claims (e.g. lack of freedom, corruption), even if its anti-clerical element was an advantage. Comparing the Cuban experience to other Latin American countries with leftist dictatorships (e.g. Venezuela) helps understand their failure to achieve the Cuban indicators (e.g. education). The crucial factor in this regard is whether or not the power and influence of the Roman Church-State are reduced.

AbstractThis paper will consider two levels within the study of the Cuban revolution: the meta-narratives of change and continuity that determine the academic literature on Cuba and inform political positioning in relation to the revolution, and the methodological challenges in understanding how people in Cuba experience change and continuity in their daily life. Transformation and continuity have been the two dominant analytical tropes used to interpret Cuban social and political life since the overthrow of the Batista regime in 1959. For Cuban scholars and politicians, a focus on change in reference to what was Cuba’s reality before the Revolution is a continuous concern and a powerful discursive mechanism in redefining and reinvigorating the revolutionary project. Simultaneously, in periods of crisis throughout the 62 years since the revolution, the capacity to demonstrate continuity with revolutionary principles while developing new mechanisms to redefine the political project has ensured the revolution’s subsistence. Conversely, continuity and change are also harnessed by critics of Cuba’s current regime to articulate the ever-imminent collapse of socialism in the region. Change has been their main focus of concern during critical historic moments that affected the trajectory of the Cuban revolutionary project. From this perspective, change embodies a promise of progress and implies a movement toward liberal democracy and a pro-US foreign policy, while continuity denotes failure, stagnation, and repression. At the core of the analysis of change in Cuba lies a concern with the nature of the state. Ethnographic data reveals the partialities and contradictions people experience in their daily life and across time. Two elements of ethnographic experience are particularly informative: life histories that span across the revolutionary period, and generational conflicts surrounding political issues. I will focus on the life history of key informants and the generational conflicts that surround their experience, a well as their material contexts (their neighborhood, their house, their job), all of which help to elucidate the complexities of studying change within a permanent revolution.