"The Mula Ring": Material and Digital Flows between Miami and Cuba

• In Event: Cuban Diasporas Across Time: Dialogue and Divergence

Abstract

Discourses on Cuban culture both on the island and amongst its diaspora commonly emphasise the politically imposed ‘Sugar Wall’ separating communities on either side of a geopolitical border. However, ethnographic research in contemporary Miami and across Cuba reveals socially-grounded networks of exchange stretching across the Florida Straits and beyond. The flows of material and digital items between these places through various means point to complex stories of kinship, galvanized by recent technological developments and political cessations.

This paper argues that the personal stories represented by such exchanges act as a lens onto a shifting relationship between Cuba and its diaspora. I explore how Cubans in both Miami and Cuba are negotiating materiality and digital networks within their own plural notions of cubanidad (‘Cubanness’), capitalism, and socialism—all according to their own geopolitical and socioeconomic contexts. The paper considers various examples of material and digital exchange, from medicine and food to hard currency, visual art, and the digital sharing network “El Paquete Semanal.” In so doing, I interrogate new definitions of what it means to be Cuban, both online and offline, in both ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ settings.

Author

• Jennifer H Cearns, University College London