Paper short abstract:

Cuba’s consumer inflation rate increased by more than 400% in 2023. In thinking through pressure, we argue that Cuban bodies respond to inflation in a compression-oscillatory fashion, like sound waves. This paper shows how Cubans cope with a dense and complex economic system that is failing them.

Paper long abstract:

According to official statistics, Cuba’s consumer inflation rate increased by more than 400% in 2023. The price of food and other essential commodities are continuously on the rise. The black-market dictates exchange rates through internet communication technologies (ICT) such as WhatsApp, and Cubans who fled the country en masse are continuously hunting for the best deal to acquire hard currency through such ICT. Rapid inflation increase is not without its consequences. Recent fieldwork in Santiago de Cuba (2023; 2024) shows that the inflationary prices of basic consumption goods caused by the economic reforms and the responses of the black market creates a system that exacerbates social and racial disparities. Cubans deal with a lot of pressure related to money and aguantar (to endure pressure) has its limits. Cubans have lived under pressure almost permanently, or as Kapcia (2008) would argue, in a “permanent cycle of crises.” They have learned to struggle (luchar), to resolve (resolver), and to invent (inventar) ways to cope with the shortage of products and information, among other things. But how are Cubans responding to the current economic crisis? How do they respond to inflation rates? In thinking through the concept of pressure, we argue that Cuban bodies respond in a compression-oscillatory fashion, like sound waves. Yet this does not suggest that Cubans follow a model of resilience. In providing day to day examples, this paper shows some of the ways in which Cubans cope with an extremely dense and complex economic system that is failing them.