Citizen Engagement in Cuba
Neighbors and the State in Pogolotti
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:7th Feb '24
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Citizen Engagement in Cuba: Neighbors and the State in Pogolotti examines citizen engagement at the local level in Cuba through projects initiated by the community since the 1990s. The nature of citizen participation in Cuba is not clearly understood by many in the United States, where the communist government is conflated with the Soviet states of Eastern Europe as a totalitarian regime in which the people of Cuba are helpless to confront, and punished when they do. The reality in Cuba is much more nuanced. This book discusses this reality through a focus on Pogolotti, reflecting on its history as the first low-cost housing community in Cuba in 1910. This community is but one example of a neighborhood where projects represent active participation by citizens. The willingness of communist authorities to work with officially sanctioned workshops and partner with civic groups indicates a level of citizen participation that has not been studied fully and provides an understanding of the relationship between citizens and the state in Cuba.
This volume features the work of Iranian poet and visual artist Sohrab Sepehri (1928–80) in conversation with that of James Baldwin. Sepehri's work was largely composed during the repressive reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1953–79), who was placed in power by the Americans after they overthrew the legitimately elected President Mohammad Mossadegh. Harsh repression eventually led to a popular revolution and the overthrow of the shah. Throughout his life, Sephri‘s works, written and visual, presented a poetics of love; love understood not as emotion but as a way of knowing. This type of love cuts through cultural and political barriers, allowing those who experience it to encounter the sacredness of other people and of all creation. Love as knowledge opens up a vision of a future in which the dignity of each person is upheld and all of creation is respected and treated accordingly. To demonstrate that such a radical, transformative experience of love is not culturally limited but rather a potentially universal human experience, Davary connects Sepehri's work to the work of James Baldwin (1924–87), who, embedded in the racial violence of the US, arrived at a similar awareness of a deeper love as the only path to fundamental social revolution. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. * Choice Reviews *
The book provides an important window into how participation in local politics takes place in contemporary Cuba. Its nuanced understanding of on-the-ground participatory governance provides a thoughtful counter argument to notions of Cuba as an inflexible totalitarian society. This study depicts a people enmeshed in lively political participation and with the ability to make local-level change. Grounded in the history and legacy of Cubans refashioning politics from below, James A. Baer’s critical engagement with hard questions about its contemporary reality illuminates the everyday forms of citizen engagement that keep Cuban society running today. -- Sara Kozameh, University of California, San Diego
ISBN: 9781666907568
Dimensions: 237mm x 158mm x 19mm
Weight: 458g
232 pages