Proyectos Comunitarios in Havana: Tourism as Resource for Grassroots Development in Late Socialist Cuba
Keywords:
Cuba, tourism, development, community projects, informal settlementsAbstract
The aim of this article is to consider intersections between tourism-oriented economies and the politics of infrastructure and community development in a (late) socialist country. I argue that although tourism is usually considered a mechanism that deepens existing inequalities and creates new ones, in the context of late socialist Cuba it becomes a resource that the creation of new ideas for community development and brings attention to various social issues. My research builds on a rich body of work that considers the impact of touristic transformations in Cuba while linking it to the critical reflection on Cuban revolutionary ideology and strategies of community engagement.
References
Ana, R., & Lubiński, O. (2019). Cuban private entrepreneurship – from periphery to key sector of the economy in tourism‐oriented market socialism. Regional Science Policy and Practice, (11), pp. 467–477. https://doi.org/10.1111/rsp3.12154
Anguelovski, I. (2014). Neighborhood as Refuge. Community Reconstruction, Place Remaking and Environmental Justice in the City. Cambridge, United Kingdom: The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262026925.001.0001
Appadurai, A. (2004). The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and Terms of Recognition. In V. Rao, M. Walton (eds.), Culture and Public Action (pp. 59-84). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Baker, G. (2006). "La Habana Que No Conoces": Cuban Rap and the Social Construction of Urban Space. Ethnomusicology Forum, 15(2), pp. 215-246. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411910600915380
Blum, D. F. (2011). Cuban youth and revolutionary values. Educating the new socialist citizen. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bowman, K. (2015). Policy choice, social structure, and international tourism in Buenos Aires, Havana and Rio de Janeiro. Latin American Research Review, 50(3), pp. 135–156. https://doi.org/10.1353/lar.2015.0038
Cabezas, A. L. (2004). Between love and money. Sex, tourism, and citizenship in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Signs, 29(4), pp. 987-1015. https://doi.org/10.1086/382627
Carty, V. (2009). Capitalist Measures within a Socialist model: a Commodity Chains Analysis of the Emerging Cuban Tourism Industry. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 34(67), pp. 163-195. https://doi.org/10.1080/08263663.2009.10816968
Colantonio, A., & Potter, R. B. (2006). Urban Tourism and Development in the Socialist State. Havana during the 'Special Period'. Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate.
Coyula, M., & Hamberg, J. (2005). Understanding Slums. The Case of Havana, Cuba. Cambridge, MA: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
Crahan, M. E. (2015). Religion and Civil Society in Cuba, 1959-2013. In P. Brenner et al. (eds.), A Contemporary Cuba Reader. The Revolution under Raúl Castro (pp. 89-98). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Duany, J. (2007). Networks, remittances and family restaurants: the Cuban diaspora from a transnational perspective. In A. O’Reilly Herrera (ed.), Cuba. Idea of a nation displaced (pp. 161-175). Albany: State of New York University Press.
Fernandes, S. (2003). Fear of a Black Nation: Local Rappers, Transnational Crossings, and State Power in Contemporary Cuba. Anthropological Quarterly, 76(4), pp. 575-608. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2003.0054
Fernández, D. J. (2000). Cuba and the Politics of Passion. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Frederik. L. A. (2005). Cuba’s national characters: setting the stage for the Hombre Novísimo. Journal of Latin American Anthropology, 10(2), pp. 401-436. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlat.2005.10.2.401
de la Fuente, A. (2011). Recreating racism. Race and discrimination in Cuba’s “Special Period”. Socialism and Democracy, (15), pp. 65-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854300108428278
Gordy, K. A. (2015). Living Ideology in Cuba. Socialism in Principle and Practice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.7327764
Hearn, A. H. (2008). Cuba. Religion, Social Capital, and Development. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822389484
Hernández, R. (2003). Looking at Cuba. Essays on Culture and Civil Society. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Hodge, G. D. (2014). „Dangerous” Youth: Tourism Space, Gender Performance, and the Policing of Havana Street Hustlers. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 19(3), pp. 441-472. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.12104
Klepak, H. (2015). The Revolutionary Armed Forces: Loyalty and Efficiency in the Face of Old and new Challenges. In P. Brenner et al. (eds.), A Contemporary Cuba Reader. The Revolution under Raúl Castro (pp. 73-82). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Lievesley, G. (2004). The Cuban Revolution. Past, Present and Future Perspectives. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403943972
Lubiński, O. (2017). Imaginarium państwa. Seksturystyka i oddolne systemy kontroli kontaktów między Kubańczykami a turystami. Zeszyty etnologii wrocławskiej. 1(26), pp. 69-88.
Medina Lasansky, D. (2004). Tourist geographies. Remapping Old Havana. In D. Medina Lasansky, & B. McLaren (eds.), Architecture and tourism. perception, performance, and place (pp. 165-186). Oxford, United Kingdom: Berg Publishers. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350057715.ch-009
Ogden, R. (2015). Understanding Cuban Tourism: Affect and Capital in Post-Special Period Cuba (Doctoral dissertation). Manchester, United Kingdom: University of Manchester.
Premat, A. (2012). Sowing Change. The Making of Havana's Urban Agriculture. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
del Real, P., & Scarpaci, J. (2011). Barbacoas: Havana’s New Inward Frontier. In A. Birkenmaier & E. Whitfield (eds.): Havana beyond the ruins: Cultural Mappings after 1989 (pp. 53-72). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394426-004
Routon, K. (2005). Unimaginable Homelands? “Africa” and the Abakúa Historical Imagination. Journal of Latin American Anthropology, 10(2), pp. 370-400. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlat.2005.10.2.370
Salazar, N. B. (2012). The Power of Imagination in Transnational Mobilities. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 18(6), pp. 576-598. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2011.672859
Segre, R., Coyula, M., & Scapraci, J. L. (1998). Havana. Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis. Chichester, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons.
Yurchak, A. (2005). Everything was forever, until it was no more: the last Soviet generation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.