Dirty Money? Paper Currencies and Revolutionary Figured Worlds

• In Event: 3166 - Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 4: Money and Markets

Abstract

This paper explores narratives constructed through the banknotes the Cuban postrevolutionary government canceled, and overall through the 1961 currency reform, arguing they were conceived to give shape to a revolutionary, fidelista figured world of power that extended and legitimized Castro’s rule. The author first analyzes the Cuban currency reform, considering its financial, political, and symbolic impacts, further discussing in detail the visuality of each of the banknotes in Series 1961. She finally concludes that from the conception of the reform to the design of the notes were strategies of logistics that, as Chandra Mukerji argues, helped to define a new, revolutionary social world.

Author

• Maria A. Cabrera Arus, Brown University