Acknowledgements
Introduction: Understanding Inequality in Cuba
Chapter 1: The Political and Social Context of Contemporary
Cuba
Chapter 2: Changing Configurations of Capital and Logics of
Stratification in Cuban Society
Chapter 3: Stratification, Income, and Cultural Consumption in
Contemporary Cuba
Chapter 4: “Adjusting To the Adjustment”: Household Reproduction
Strategies and New Economic Spaces in Havana, 2010–2015
Chapter 5: The Rebirth of Real Estate: Reproducing Class
Inequalities in Havana
Epilogue: New Social Groups in Havana, 2015–2016
Appendix A: Frequent Research Contacts, Informal Interviews
References
Index
About The Author
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.
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. Bastian’s 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 island’s 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 Bastian’s 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 Cuba’s changing economy, written by a scholar
with intimate knowledge of the island.
*Elise Andaya, University at Albany*
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