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161 books match the query 'Cuba' and 9 start with d

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Dancing Wisdom

Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé

Yvonne Daniel

University of Illinois Press, 2005

Concentrating on the Caribbean Basin and the coastal area of northeast South America, Yvonne Daniel considers three African-derived religious systems that rely heavily on dance behavior–-Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahamian Candomblé.
Combining her background in dance and anthropology to parallel the participant/scholar dichotomy inherent to dancing's "embodied knowledge," Daniel examines these misunderstood and oppressed performative dances in terms of physiology, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, ethics, and aesthetics.

"Dancing Wisdom offers the rare opportunity to see into the world of mystical spiritual belief as articulated and manifested in ritual by dance. Whether it is a Cuban Yoruba dance ritual, slave Ring Shout or contemporary Pentecostal Holy Ghost possession dancing shout, we are able to understand the relationship with spirit through dancing with the Divine. Yvonne Daniel's work synthesizes the cognitive empirical objectivity of an anthropologist with the passionate storytelling of a poetic artist in articulating how dance becomes prayer in ritual for Africans of the Diaspora."
--Leon T. Burrows, Protestant Chaplain, Smith College’

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Defending Rumba in Havana

The Sacred and the Black Corporeal Undercommons

Maya J. Berry

Duke University Press, 2025

In Defending Rumba in Havana, anthropologist and dancer Maya J. Berry examines rumba as a way of knowing the embodied and spiritual dimensions of Black political imagination in post-Fidel Cuba. Historically a Black working-class popular dance, rumba, Berry contends, is a method of Black Cuban struggle that provides the community, accountability, sustenance, and dignity that neither the state nor the expanding private market can. Berry’s feminist theorization builds on the notion of the undercommons to show how rumba creates a space in which its practitioners enact deeply felt and dedicatedly defended choreographies of reciprocity, refusal, sovereignty, devotion, and pleasure, both on stage and in their daily lives. Berry demonstrates that this Black corporeal undercommons emphasizes mutual aid and refuses neoliberal development logics, favoring instead a collective self-determination rooted in African diasporic spiritual practices through which material compensation and gendered power dynamics are negotiated. By centering rumba to analyze how poor Black Cubans navigate gendered and racialized life, Berry helps readers better understand the constraints and yearnings that move diasporic Black struggles to seek refuge beyond the bounds of the nation-state.

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Democracy and Revolution

Latin America and Socialism Today

D. L. Raby

Pluto Press, 2006

Is socialism dead since the fall of the Soviet Union? What is the way forward for the Left? D. L. Raby argues that Cuba and, above all, Venezuela provide inspiration for antiglobalization and anticapitalist movements across the world. Another World Is Possible, but only through an effective political strategy to win power on a popular and democratic basis.

Raby argues passionately that the way forward for progressives is not the dogmatic formulae of the Old Left, nor in the spontaneous autonomism of Antonio Negri. Instead, it is to be found in broad popular movements with bold leadership. Examining key leaders, including Hugo Chávez and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Raby shows that it is more necessary than ever to take power, peacefully where possible, but in all cases with the strength that comes from popular unity backed by force where necessary. In this way it is possible to build democratic power, which may or may not be socialist depending on one's definition, but which represent the real anti-capitalist alternative for the twenty-first century.

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Development Prospects in Cuba

An Agenda in the Making

Edited by Pedro Monreal

University of London Press, 2002

The 1990s witnessed significant changes in the Cuban economy. The first half of the decade focused on obtaining the adjustments necessary to enable the country to overcome the profound economic crisis that had befallen it. The second half was characterized by the reality and possibilities of economic recovery. This volume may be the first academic text specifically written to assess the development perspectives of Cuba in the new conditions that prevail. The overarching question is "What comes after recovery?" The authors deal with questions of immediate relevance to the Cuban economy and its recent past, with emphasis placed on the implications for long-term prospects for development. This reflects the conviction that solutions to the challenge of development will require longer periods of analysis and different areas of focus than those which have served as the temporal and conceptual references for recent studies of the island's economy.
Contributors include Julio Carranza, Anicia Garcia, Hiram Marquetti, Lazaro Pena, Omar Everleny Perez, and Julio Diaz Vazquez (University of Havana, Cuba), Claes Brundenius (Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen, Denmark), David Dapice (Tufts University and Harvard University, USA), Francisco Leon (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), and Mauricio de Miranda (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia).

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Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

Edited by L. Antonio Curet, Shannon Lee Dawdy, and Gabino La Rosa Corzo

University of Alabama Press, 2005

A critical, dialogic examination of Cuban and Caribbean archaeology, advancing contemporary interpretations of heritage and identity.

Many Americans are aware of the political, economic, and personal impacts of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. But the communication blockade between scholars has also affected the historical course of academic disciplines and research in general. With the easing of restrictions in the 1990s, academics are now freer to conduct research in Cuba, and the Cuban government has been more receptive to collaborative projects.

This volume provides a forum for the principal Cuban and American archaeologists to update the current state of Cuban archaeological research--from rock art and potsherds to mortuary practices and historical renovation--thereby filling in the information gap created by the political separation. Each group of researchers brings significant new resources to the effort, including strong conservation regulations, innovative studies of lithic and shell assemblages, and transculturation theories. Cuban research on the hacienda system, slavery, and urban processes has in many ways anticipated developments in North American archaeology by a decade or more. Of special interest are the recent renovation projects in Old Havana that fully integrate the work of historians, architects, and archaeologists--a model project conducted by agreement between the Cuban government and UNESCO.

The selection of papers for this collection is based on a desire to answer pressing research questions of interest for North American Caribbeanists and to present a cross-section of Cuban archaeological work. With this volume, then, the principal players present results of recent collaborations and begin a renewed conversation, a dialogue, that can provide a foundation for future coordinated efforts.

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Diaspora and Trust

Cuba, Mexico, and the Rise of China

Adrian H. Hearn

Duke University Press, 2016

In Diaspora and Trust Adrian H. Hearn proposes that a new paradigm of socio-economic development is gaining importance for Cuba and Mexico. Despite their contrasting political ideologies, both countries must build new forms of trust among the state, society, and resident Chinese diaspora communities if they are to harness the potentials of China’s rise. Combining political and economic analysis with ethnographic fieldwork, Hearn analyzes Cuba's and Mexico's historical relations with China, and highlights how Chinese diaspora communities are now deepening these ties. Theorizing trust as an alternative to existing models of exchange—which are failing to navigate the world's shifting economic currents—Hearn shows how Cuba and Mexico can reformulate the balance of power between state, market, and society. A new paradigm of domestic development and foreign engagement based on trust is becoming critical for Cuba, Mexico, and other countries seeking to benefit from China’s growing economic power and social influence.

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Digital Dilemmas

The State, the Individual, and Digital Media in Cuba

Venegas, Cristina

Rutgers University Press, 2010

The contentious debate in Cuba over Internet use and digital media primarily focuses on three issuesùmaximizing the potential for economic and cultural development, establishing stronger ties to the outside world, and changing the hierarchy of control. A growing number of users decry censorship and insist on personal freedom in accessing the web, while the centrally managed system benefits the government in circumventing U.S. sanctions against the country and in controlling what limited capacity exists.

Digital Dilemmas views Cuba from the Soviet Union's demise to the present, to assess how conflicts over media access play out in their both liberating and repressive potential. Drawing on extensive scholarship and interviews, Cristina Venegas questions myths of how Internet use necessarily fosters global democracy and reveals the impact of new technologies on the country's governance and culture. She includes film in the context of broader media history, as well as artistic practices such as digital art and networks of diasporic communities connected by the Web. This book is a model for understanding the geopolitic location of power relations in the age of digital information sharing.

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Dreaming in Russian

The Cuban Soviet Imaginary

By Jacqueline Loss

University of Texas Press, 2013

The specter of the Soviet Union lingers in Cuba, yet until now there has been no book-length work on the ways Cubans process their country’s relationship with the Soviet bloc. Dreaming in Russian at last brings into the light the reality that for nearly three decades, the Soviet Union subsidized the island economically, intervened in military matters, and exported distinct pedagogical and cultural models to Cuba. Drawing on interviews with Cuban artists and intellectuals, as well as treasures from cinematographic and bibliographic archives, Jacqueline Loss delivers the first book to show that Cuba remembers and retains many aspects of the Soviet era, far from shedding those cultural facets as relics of the Cold War.

Weaving together intriguing, seldom-seen images, Dreaming in Russian showcases the ways in which Cuba’s relationship to its Soviet benefactors lingered after the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Analyzing numerous literary texts and works of visual art, Loss also incorporates aspects of architecture, popular culture, the space race, and other strands to create a captivating new perspective on Cuban society. Among the luminaries featured are poet Reina María Rodríguez, writer Antonio José Ponte, visual artist Tonel, and novelist Wendy Guerra. A departure from traditional cultural history, Loss’s approach instead presents a kaleidoscopic series of facets, reflecting the hybrid nature of the self-images that emerged in the aftermath of the Soviet aegis. As speculations about Cuba’s future under Fidel Castro’s heir apparent continue, the portrait that emerges in Dreaming in Russian is both timely and mesmerizing.

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