Everyday Adjustments in Havana: Economic Reforms, Mobility, and Emerging Inequalities

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By comparing the current reform process under President Ral Castro to Cubas opening to market capitalism during the 1990s Special Period crisis, Everyday Adjustments in Havana: Economic Reforms, Mobility, and Emerging Inequalities highlights the differences and continuities between adjustments in both periods and their social impacts. It explores the impacts of specific policies such as the expansion of self-employment and the recreation of a private housing market, examining how changes in domestic and international policies after 2011 have modified the post-Special Period status quo and contributed to the formation of new social groups that did not previously exist in Cubas Socialist society.

Reviews

Bastian is uniquely positioned to explain the intricacies and conundrums of daily life in contemporary Cuba. Her years of experience in Havana teaching foreign university students shine through in this detailed and entertaining book. Everyday Adjustments in Havana opens our eyes to new empirical data and a fresh conceptual take on social capital. Bastians methodological and theoretical innovations bring to life Cuban debates about egalitarianism and inequality. Spirited anecdotes and considered analysis reveal how social, political, and financial capital are converging to shape the islands development. -- Adrian H. Hearn, The University of Melbourne
Everyday Adjustments in Havana: Economic Reforms, Mobility, and Emerging Inequalities is a pathbreaking study of daily life in Cuba that provides essential information for policy makers, scholars, and those curious about the way Cubans are attempting to fulfill a fundamental 20th Century revolutionary goal in the 21st Century. Hope Bastians study focuses on inequality in Cuba, the eradication of which was a primary objective and success of the Revolution and has been a continuing central concern. Based on her extensive fieldwork as an anthropologist, and her use of primary data much of which the book presents for the first time outside of Cuba, Dr. Bastian demonstrates how Cubans changed the criteria of social hierarchies after the Soviet Union collapsed and then again since the government introduced new economic guidelines in 2011, adjusted to new labor market and small business opportunities in unexpected ways, and upended long-established community connections that had provided support and continuity in times of change. Richly detailed with personal stories, Everyday Adjustments in Havana is written in an engaging style that makes it equally accessible to specialists and non-specialists. -- Philip Brenner, American University
A meticulously researched study of class and social stratification in the context of Cubas changing economy, written by a scholar with intimate knowledge of the island. -- Elise Andaya, University at Albany

Author Bio

Hope Bastian is professor at San Geronimo College, University of Havana, and associate director of the Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad (CASA) in Havana, Cuba.