Access Online: Internet Governance and Image in Cuba

This article examines the restrictions on internet access in Cuba and asks to what extent the lack of access to the World Wide Web has helped to maintain (with some evident changes), the socialist status quo on the island. The article will also examine how the internet is used to represent the nation externally and ultimately argues that the Cuban government is negotiating a fine line between taking full economic advantage of what the internet can offer and hampering its use as a mechanism for the subversion of the Revolution in the face of continued US aggression.     

Cultural Policy,Literature and Readership in Revolutionary Cuba: The View from the 21st Century

This article presents a fresh perspective on cultural policy in revolutionary Cuba, focusing specifically on the centrality of dialogue with the general readership to the production, reception and regulation of literature. It first summarises the positions regarding revolutionary literature that have been asserted and essayed at various points along the sometimes chaotic trajectory of revolution in Cuba. It then examines reading-related policies and recent attempts within Cuba to re-orient reading practices in the aftermath of the Período Especial [Special Period], and ends by presenting current Cuban debates on the need to mitigate dialogic breakdown between literary text and readership.     

Cultural Policy and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Cuba: Re-reading the Palabras a los intelectuales (Words to the Intellectuals)

This article re-reads Fidel Castro's speech to Cuban artists and intellectuals at the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí (National Library) in June 1961. Despite extensive discussion of its famous extract, the speech has rarely been examined in depth. This article thus analyses the entire speech, situating it within its co-text and its context and examining its multiple functions, offering as it does an insight into the social and educational implications of cultural revolution in Cuba and the inevitable tensions inherent in these. The article evaluates the negotiations in the text in the light of their relevance to contemporary cultural debates in Cuba.     

Jail-house Rock: Cuba, AIDS, and the Incorporation of Dissent in Bengt Norborg's Socialism or Death

Abstract — The demerits and merits of Cuba's quarantine facilities for AIDS patients and seropositives have been widely debated. This article expands the debate by referring to the phenomenon of HIV self-injection in Cuba, as documented in the 1995 film, Socialism or Death. There is an assessment of the economic, medical, and educational context which informed the events depicted by the film. HIV self-injection is discussed alongside reference to the development in Cuba of a counter-cultural youth movement based around a common interest in rock music. The testimony of self-injected patients and their families, and the reactions of Cuban medical officials are summarised. Comparisons are made between Cuban policy and radical queer theory.     

荆棘与鲜血之路通向何方?

本文首先回顾了东帝汶问题形成的历史,其次将１９９８ 年６ 月以来东帝汶问题的发展分为三个阶段,即讨论自治问题阶段、讨论独立问题阶段和实现投票公决阶段,并从东帝汶本地区的形势、印尼国内状况、国际社会影响三方面分析了印尼政府改变对东帝汶政策的原因。文章的第三部分着重分析了影响东帝汶独立问题的主要因素,指出印尼国内政治对于东帝汶问题的解决发挥着重要作用     

Inventing Tradition at Gunpoint: Culture,Caciquismo and State Formation in the Región Mixe,Oaxaca (1930–1959)

This article examines the links between the creation of a post‐revolutionary Mexican culture and the maintenance of traditional forms of cacical control. Taking as a case study Luis Rodríguez, a cacique from the state of Oaxaca, it is argued that he utilised state notions of indigenismo and indigenous cultural production to assert and maintain his position as the strongman of the Mixe ethnic group. However, despite the employment of state discourses, Rodríguez’s fiefdom was never subsumed into the corporate revolutionary state. Rather, these claims of ethnic unity were used as a smokescreen to deter state intervention. As a result, Rodríguez was forced to use intimidation and violence to control pueblos outside his immediate sphere of influence during the 1940s and 1950s.     

The Illusion of Equality: Machismo and Cuban Cinema of the Revolution

This article attempts to show how certain Cuban films both reflect and construct behaviour concerning male–female relations. In so doing, they illustrate how Cuban cinema provided a mainstream cultural forum for controversial and contradictory debates on gender relations. At times, films that attempt to produce images of gender equality, or at least the possibility of this, merely provide the illusion of equality while maintaining the status quo of patriarchy. That is, the images they present of male–female relations appear on the surface to represent an increasing desire to achieve absolute equality between men and women. However, close analysis of these films, using various tools of feminist and feminist film theory, reveals a continuation of certain patriarchal tendencies that the films themselves are attempting to criticise. The films to be discussed are: De cierta manera (Sara Gómez, 1974–1978), Retrato de Teresa (Pastor Vega, 1979) and Hasta cierto punto (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1983).     

State,Society and Markets in Argentina: The Political Economy of Neodesarrollismo under Néstor Kirchner, 2003–2007

The national Peronist social contract in Argentina has a long history rooted in syndicalism and populism. However, Menemismo in the 1990s, El Argentinazo in December 2001, and Kirchnerismo post crisis have all served to change the fundamental framework of the Argentine economy, the social underpinnings of that economy and how it intersects with global capital. This article is an attempt to identify the nature of Kirchner's administration through analysis of political economy, therefore seeking to facilitate a deeper understanding of the developmental nature and impact of the Kirchner administration of 2003–2007.     

The Silent Scream of the Locas in Mariposas en el andamio

This article explores the way cross-dressing has been used as a tool of dissent by queer subjects in the film Mariposas en el andamio . This documentary not only advocates the integration of homosexuals in the realm of Cuban society, but also evidences the establishment of a culture of transvestism on the island. The ultimate intention of Mariposas is to posit the male-to-female transvestite as a figure that contests hegemonic heteronormativity as well as the machista values predicated by the Cuban revolution. The film not only opposes sexist heteronormativity (machismo in Latin American societies), but also establishes a link between homosexuality and cross-dressing practices in Latin America, as transvestism becomes an externalisation of these individuals' homosexual identity. Furthermore, the film seems to suggest that the transvestites feel trapped in the wrong biological sex. The second focus of this article is on the geographical spaces where such transvestic practices are permissible on the island. Although the film makes a case for a more open and inclusive Cuban society, it fails to show that same-sex desire and cross-dressing can be played out outside the neighbourhood's canteen in which the show takes place. Finally, I intend to show how camp becomes the best strategy for the transvestites to challenge the idea of homosexuals as anti-revolutionary figures as well as Latin American heteronormativity. To this end, I engage in a study of a strategy of gender subversion that I call 'camp fuck'. This type of campness de-constructs the idea of a bourgeois camp to transform it into a more political device, which permits the contesting of heteronormativity through elements that have traditionally been regarded as frivolous and apolitical.     

Politics of Trade in Post‐neoliberal Latin America: The Case of Bolivia

Deploying a two‐level perspective, this article analyses the regional and domestic space that the Morales administration has in which to implement the vision of trade articulated in its Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND; National Development Plan). Regionally the Morales administration has attempted to combine the solidarity principles of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA; Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) with the market‐oriented growth possibilities provided by more orthodox integration projects such as the Comunidad Andina de Naciones (CAN; Andean Community of Nations) and the Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur; Southern Common Market). Domestically the Movimiento al socialismo (MAS; Movement Toward Socialism) government must negotiate the destabilising effects of its trade strategy in a polarised national context where business and civil society actors are critiquing from their respective positions both the solidarity principles and market‐oriented elements of the PND trade strategy.     

Inca, Sailor, Soldier, King: Gregor MacGregor and the Early Nineteenth‐Century Caribbean

This article examines the recruiting practices, political propositions and changing identities of the Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor in the early nineteenth‐century Caribbean. Based on original archival research and revision of the existing secondary literature, it seeks to understand why he has consistently been judged as a failure, and why neither Scotland nor any of the countries MacGregor worked in have wanted to claim him as their own hero. After an introduction providing biographical details and some historical context for the Caribbean in the period 1811–1830, the article looks in detail at what have been seen to be his successes and failures in the Caribbean region. It asks to what extent questions of ethnicity or masculinity have affected the way contemporaries and historians viewed MacGregor and his actions. In conclusion, it suggests that although he was a soldier and a sailor, and he was declared both an Inca and a King, his career was deemed a failure by both contemporaries and historians in Scotland, South America and the Caribbean. The main explanation for this negative assessment is that his ambitions continually fell foul of the interests of various Caribbean elites and of the distinctive historical circumstances of the region.¹     

Homosexuality and the Repression of Intellectuals in Fresa y chocolate and Máscaras

Abstract The aim of this article is to examine and compare how the repression of homosexuals and intellectuals is portrayed in two recent Cuban fictional narratives: the film, Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate) (Gutierrez Alea et al., 1993) and the detective novel, Mascaras (Masks) (Padura Fuentes Mascaras, Tusquets, Barcelona, 1997). It discusses how these narratives document the history of both these phenomena and evaluates how they might contribute to a better understanding of the process of fundamental social and cultural transformation which the Revolution is experiencing following the collapse of the Soviet Union.     

从应对"9·11"看美国两党的执政方式

美国政党的执政方式是一个值得专门研究的问题.本文通过对美国政党制度特点的阐述,并在此基础上分析第107届国会与布什总统应对"9·11"恐怖袭击,建立国内安全体系的过程,借以从两大方面论证美国执政党的执政方式即同一执政党内部,执政权如何配置?分裂的政府中两党各行使哪些执政权?两个执政党如何处理相互关系?最后,本文探讨了美国政党的执政方式与民主和法治的关系.作者认为,宪法规定的民主制度需要有与之相适应的党内和党际的民主制度,才可能实现.同样,宪法规定的分权制衡制度需要有与之相适应的党内和党际分权制衡制度,才可能实在地支配立法机关与行政机关的关系.从本文所分析的应对"9·¨"的过程看,美国两党的执政方式体现了宪法所规定的民主、分权和制衡制度,这是它长期实行而不易改变的基本原因.反过来,长期以来美国宪法关于国家权力的规定能见诸实施,要归功于两党所奉行的民主、分权和制衡的执政方式.     

Foreign Investment and Trade in Cuban Development: A 50-Year Reassessment with Emphasis on the Post-1990 Period

This article provides a 50-year reassessment of foreign investment and trade in Cuba and locates this analysis within Cuban debates on development and the economics of transition. Transformations contextualised in these debates cover three periods. The 1959–1989 period was characterised by nationalisations and expropriations, the imposition of the US trade embargo, and the trade and economic assistance agreements signed with the Soviet Union. The Special Period crisis emerged in the 1990s and Cuba had to turn to foreign investment and alternative trade options while continuing to reject the adoption of open regionalism and neoliberal policies. The 2005–2008 period was characterised by Cuba's incorporation into the Bolivarian Alternative, a new regional integration model.     

Gender and the State in Rural Chile

Abstract — This paper focuses on SERNAM, the state institution responsible for the incorporation of gender into public policy in Chile, and the actions taken by the state to benefit women employed in the modern agricultural sector. It charts the emergence of the demands for such an institution by the women's movement, and the creation of SERNAM as an integral part of the transition to democracy. In particular, the paper analyses the Programme for the Children of the Temporeras , which is a unique state-led initiative to provide childcare facilities to enable women to enter the seasonal labour market during the summer months. The paper explores the complex relations between gender, the state, capitalist agriculture and patriarchal structures, with the aim of highlighting the sometimes unexpected convergence of interests, and the points of conflict.     

The Discovery of Gold in the Orange Free State and its Economic Effects

This represents the bulk of a joint lecture at the Royal EmpireSociety on the 25/A June under the chairmanship of the HighCommissioner jor the Union of South Africa. Besides his controlof De Beers, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer is the founder of the Anglo-AmericanCorporation, one of the leading Houses on the Rand.