The great paradox: how Obama’s opening to Cuba may imperil the country’s reform process

This article examines the kind of development and political model most likely to emerge in Cuba, particularly in the wake of the gradual US–Cuban normalisation currently taking place. The rapprochement process, culminating with President Obama’s historic visit in March 2016, has unleashed stiff resistance in both countries. The liberal democratisation paradigm is held up against what we have termed ‘socialist neo-patrimonialism’, with both seen as alternative tools for assessing the direction of social transformations underway in Cuba, focusing on the debate about the role of the national private sector. Paradoxically, normalisation with the USA may so far have had the contrary effect of what President Obama had in mind in this respect: judging from the 7th Congress of the Communist Party in April 2016, it seems that resistance against economic reforms has hardened, caused by a fear that Obama’s charm offensive, combined with a strengthened entrepreneurial sector, will undermine the entire revolutionary project. The article concludes with a discussion of four development scenarios.     

Cuba's Response to COVID-19: What Underlies its Apparent Success?

Over the last few months extremely positive accounts have been circulating of Cuba's role and approach in the COVID-19 response, both nationally and internationally. A universal healthcare system with family doctors and nurses providing door-to-door services, as well as the swift introduction of measures to control movement have been some of the factors underlying this relative success. However, this success hides the disadvantageous social reality facing the majority of Cubans, including differential access to services, a health system that is struggling and limited choice and freedoms.     

19世纪末至20世纪初古巴华人形象的构建与塑造

古巴华侨华人是中国在古巴形象的代言人,也是中国在古巴形象的塑造者。19世纪末至20世纪初,古巴华人群体经历了华工、华商及自由移民者等不同历史阶段。在特定历史背景下,华人在古巴社会中作为“他者”的形象构建与塑造是存在一定差异的。而古巴社会对华人形象的认知,既有对其正面形象的肯定,也有一定程度上对其负面形象的误读。     

Food Import Dependency in Cuba: Still the ‘Achilles’ Heel of the Revolution'?

The ‘Special Period in Peacetime’ plunged Cuba into an austerity programme of great severity. The crisis forced agriculture to shift dramatically from a model based on trade dependency (sugar exports providing most of the foreign currency) to one prioritising food import substitution. This alternative brought about major transformations in the country's agriculture. It revolutionised food production and decentralised land ownership. This article asks whether or not these changes reduced food dependency in Cuba. It provides an updated picture of Cuba's food import dependency, with a particular emphasis on the increased role of small farmers in food production during the 2000s.     

Never Thaw that coming! Latin American regional integration and the US–Cuba Thaw

Existing accounts of the US–Cuba Thaw correctly identify the decisiveness of Latin American states in pushing the 2014 change in US policy towards Cuba. Problematically, however, these accounts overlook a range of regional integration projects pursued by Latin American states that prove pivotal in ascertaining the central dynamics of the region in shaping the Thaw. This article argues that these regional integration projects are imperative to understanding how Latin American states were able to alter US policy towards Cuba, for three reasons. First, these initiatives, and Cuba’s role in these projects, are central to understanding why Cuba came to be a unanimously ‘regional’ issue for Latin American states of all political persuasions; second, the challenges to US dominance in the region provided by these integration projects were ultimately what gave Latin American states their teeth in pushing the Obama administration to reconsider its policy towards Cuba; and third, a consideration of this broader regional context more thoroughly illustrates the strategic nature of the change in policy towards Cuba as an attempt by the US to salvage its ability to influence regional affairs in response to these integration initiatives that excluded it from the region’s architecture.     

La jurisprudencia en cuba: reconocimiento dentro del sistema de fuentes del derecho y posibles consecuencias*

In Cuba there is no formal and explicit determination of the sources of Law. At present, however, beyond the normative act as only way for the creation of Law, exists other forms, among which is the jurisprudence. This article discusses some elements that sustain the possibility and necessity of its recognition in the Cuban legal system and the consequences of this fact, since the development of the jurisprudence in different historical moments, the main positions and doctrinal controversies — especially in the Cuban academic circles —, and its concrete manifestation in the judicial system in Cuba.     

Symbiosis Between Slavery and Feminism in Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's Sab?

Abstract— Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's novel Sub (1841) has been subject to many interpretations. Early criticism considered it as little more than a sentimental and shocking romantic story: the impossibly unconventional love of a black slave for a white woman. Later critics'have sought to establish Snb as a pioneering antislavery novel. This article will attempt to demonstrate that Avellaneda's main purpose was not to narrate a doomed love, nor to present a denunciation of slavery, but to express her feminist ideology, establishing the parallelism between the situation of black slaves and the oppression of white women in the bourgeois society of her time. However, we cannot say that Avellaneda created a symbiosis between slavery and feminism; the theme of slavery is only a metaphor, doubly shocking because it exposes her own emancipating ideas in an oppressive society that did not forgive those voices ivhich dared to transgress its norms. 0 1997 Society for Latin American Studies.     

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and the Art of Revolutionary Cinema

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea has been widely acclaimed for his cinematic production and for his role as a key figure in the elaboration of a distinctively Cuban aesthetic. Drawing on notions such as Martín-Barbero's mediations, Billig's banal nationalism, and Gutiérrez Alea's own viewer's dialectic, consideration is given here to the mutual influences of the Revolution's cultural policies on cinema, and of cinema on the Revolution. Analysis will focus on the films Memorias del subdesarrollo (1968), Hasta cierto punto (1983), Fresa y chocolate (1993) and Guantanamera (1995), which will allow for discussion of some of the director's key themes, including gender issues, the place and role of intellectuals and artists in relation to the Revolution, and the defence of a critical space in which to explore such issues.