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The Cuban Hustle

Culture, Politics, Everyday Life

The Cuban Hustle

Book Pages: 184 Illustrations: 21 illustrations Published: October 2020

Author: Sujatha Fernandes

Subjects
Art and Visual Culture, Latin American Studies, Music

In The Cuban Hustle, Sujatha Fernandes explores the multitudinous ways artists, activists, and ordinary Cubans have hustled to survive and express themselves in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Whether circulating information on flash drives as a substitute for the internet or building homemade antennas to listen to Miami’s hip hop radio stations, Cubans improvise alternative strategies and workarounds to contend with ongoing isolation. Throughout these essays, Fernandes examines the emergence of dynamic youth cultures and social movements as Cuba grappled with economic collapse, new digital technologies, the normalization of diplomatic ties with the United States during the Obama administration, and the regression of US-Cuban relations in the Trump era. From reflections on feminism, new Cuban cinema, and public art to urban slums, the Afro-Cuban movement, and rumba and hip hop, Fernandes reveals Cuba to be a world of vibrant cultures grounded in an ethos of invention and everyday hustle.

Praise

“A fascinating dossier about the challenges and preoccupations of post-Soviet Cuba. From negotiating the fallout from a globalizing economy to new movements in the visual arts, music, film, feminism, and racial consciousness, Sujatha Fernandes brings readers up to date on the inventive, evolving hustle that is Cuba's survival.” — Cristina García, author of Here in Berlin: A Novel

“In a complex and nuanced way, Sujatha Fernandes describes Cuba's most recent two decades, focusing on subjects that have not been written about in this much detail. She contributes to a new understanding of present-day Cuba—and its many fascinating idiosyncrasies, tensions, and creative solutions to complicated problems—in an engaging and politically sophisticated style that general readers will enjoy.” — Margaret Randall, author of I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary

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Author/Editor Bios Back to Top

Sujatha Fernandes is Professor of Political Economy and Sociology at the University of Sydney and author of Cuba Represent!: Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures and Who Can Stop the Drums?: Urban Social Movements in Chávez's Venezuela both also published by Duke University Press, and most recently of Curated Stories: The Uses and Misuses of Storytelling.

Table of Contents Back to Top
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Cultures of the Special Period
1. Revolution and Rumba: Cuba in the Special Period
2. Alice in Wondertown: Interview with Filmmaker Daniel Díaz Torres
3. Magín: Feminist Organizing in Cuba
4. Vitality in Precarious Conditions: Conversation with Artist/Art Critic Tonel
5. Public Art and Art Collectives in Havana
6. New Cuban Cinema: Race and Sexuality
7. The Capital of Rap: Hip Hop Culture in Alamar
8. Cultural Cimarronaje: Afro-Cuban Visual Arts
9. Elio Rodríguez: Of Joint Ventures and Sexual Adventures
Part II. Normalization: Netflix Meets the Weekly Packet
10. Cuban Rap: Where the Streets Meet Highbrow Art
11. Why USAID Could Never Spark a Hip Hop Revolution in Cuba
12. Stories that Resonate: New Cultures of Documentary Filmmaking in Cuba (With Alexandra Hakin)
13. What Do Cubans Think of Normalization with the United States?
14. The Repeating Barrio
15. In Cuba, Will the Revolution Be Digitized?
16. Afro-Cuban Activists Fight Racism between Two Fires
17. Black Diasporic Dialogues in Post-Soviet Cuba
18. The Many Shades of Fidel Castro
Part III. Cuban Futures and the Trump Era
19. The Cold War Politics of Donald Trump
20. Hairdressers of the World, Unite! (You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Locks . . . and a Community to Win)
21. How Socially Engaged Activism Is Transforming Cuba
22. A Ship Adrift: Cuba after the Pink Tide
Epilogue
Index
Sales/Territorial Rights: World

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Additional InformationBack to Top
Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-0964-1 / Cloth ISBN: 978-1-4780-0870-5
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