Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the tensions between state attempts to control Cubans' engagement in the tourism industry. Using Habana Vieja as a site of contested terrain, residents challenge state attempts to control their interactions & commoditize their very existence.

Paper long abstract:

Specifically drawing upon nearly a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in Havana, Cuba and the burgeoning tourist industry on the island, this paper examines the role(s) of the post-Soviet Cuban state in structuring, promoting, and restricting the tourist experience. The particular concern here is an exploration of how the state itself acts as the primary agent in transforming specific segments of the Cuban populace into commodities, and how some Cubans resist their commoditization or, at the very least, turn their commoditization into a process for their own rather than the state's benefit. These contested processes reflect broader contests between the individual and the state in a twenty-first century socialist society. In so doing, I suggest that broader questions regarding the distributive use of power in tourist practices requires more incisive and informative ethnographic techniques for the elucidation and understanding of both state sanctioned and unsanctioned tourism-related activities not just in Cuba but throughout the global industry of tourism.

Paper Download (107 KB)