Informality in contemporary Cuban labor market. An anthropological perspective


Abstract


This article shall analyze from a socio-anthropological perspective, and based upon the data collected during ten years of qualitative research in La Habana (2007-2017), the phenomenon of informality in the Cuban contemporary labor market, in both discourse and practice, by considering the structural reasons (political and economic) along with the socio-cultural ones.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20398573v4n2p51

Keywords: Ethnography; Informality; Labor market; Cuba; qualitative research

References


Alessandrini, S, & Dallago, B, 1987, The unofficial economy: consequences and perspectives in different economic systems. Gower Publishing Company.

Brundenius, C, & Torres Pérez, R, (eds.). 2015 No More Free Lunch. Springer.

Burawoy, M, & Verdery, K, (eds.). 1999. Uncertain transition: ethnographies of change in the Post socialist world Rowman and Littlefield. Lanham MD.

Castells, M, & Portes, A, 1989, ‘World underneath: The origins, dynamics, and ef-fects of the informal economy’. The informal economy: Studies in advanced and less devel-oped countries, 12.

Centeno, M, & Portes, A, 2006, ‘The informal economy in the shadow of the state’. In P. Fernández-Kelly, & Shefner, J. (eds.). Out of the shadows: Political action and the informal economy in Latin America, Penn State Press, pp. 23-48.

Cherneski, M, 2018, ‘Sociolismo (Cuba)’, in A. Ledeneva, (ed.). The Global Encyclo-paedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity, Volume 1. London: UCL Press, pp. 46-48.

Coletto, D, & Bisschop, L, 2017, ‘Waste pickers in the informal economy of the Global South: included or excluded?’ International Journal of Sociology and Social Pol-icy, 37(5/6), 280-294.

De Soto, H, 1989, The other path. New York: Harper & Row.

Espina, M, 2010, Desarrollo, desigualdad y políticas sociales. Acercamientos desde una perspectiva compleja. La Habana: Publicaciones Acuario. Centro Félix Varela, 164-189.

Fernández, D, 2000 Cuba and the Politics of Passion. University of Texas Press.

Feinberg, R, 2013, ‘Foreign investment in the new Cuban economy’. NACLA Re-port on the Americas, 46(1), 13-18.

Gaceta Oficial, 1963 ‘Project to Regulate the Organization of Socialist Emulation.’ 7 February.

Giordano, C, 2015, ‘The importance of personalized relationships in Post-Socialist rural Bulgaria: Informality of new capitalist entrepreneurs’. In J, Morris, & Polese, A. (eds.). Informal economies in post-socialist spaces: Practices, institutions and networks. Springer, pp. 175-192.

González, P, 2014, ‘Without Sugarcane There Is No Country. What Should We Do Now?’. In C, Brundenius, & Torres Pérez, R, (eds.). No More Free Lunch . Springer, pp. 235-241.

Graeber, D, 2001, Toward an anthropological theory of value: The false coin of our own dreams. Springer.

Grossman, S, 1977, ‘The existence of futures markets, noisy rational expectations and informational externalities’. The Review of Economic Studies, 431-449.

Grupo Cubano de Investigaciones Económicas, 1963, Labor Conditions in Communist Cuba, 7. Cuban Economic Research Project, University of Miami.

Hart, K, 1973, ‘Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana’. The journal of modern African studies, 11(1), 61-89.

Hart, K, 2011, ‘Building human economy: a question of value?’ Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 36(2): 5-17.

Henig, D, Makovicky, N, (eds.). 2018 Economies of Favour after Socialism, Oxford University Press.

Henken, T, 2002, ‘Condemned to Informality: Cuba's Experiments with Self-Employment during the Special Period (The Case of the Bed and Break-fasts)’. Cuban Studies, 33, 1-29.

Holbraad, M, 2004, ‘Religious 'Speculation': The Rise of Ifa Cults and Consumption in Post-Soviet Cuba’. Journal of Latin American Studies, 36, 643-663.

Holbraad, M, 2005, Expending multiplicity: money in Cuban Ifá cults. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11(2), 231-254.

Holbraad, M, 2014, ‘Revolución o muerte: self-sacrifice and the Ontology of Cuban Revolution’. Ethnos, 79(3), 365-387.

Holbraad, M, 2018, ‘The Social Warmth of Paradox’, in D, Henig, Makovicky, N, (eds.). 2018 Economies of Favour after Socialism, Oxford University Press, pp.225-233.

Humphrey, C, 2018, ‘A New Look at Favours. The Case of Post-Socialist Higher Education’, in D, Henig, Makovicky, N, (eds.). 2018 Economies of Favour after Socialism, Oxford University Press, pp.50-72.

Ledeneva, A, 1998, Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ledeneva, A, 2018, ‘The Ambivalence of Favour. Paradoxes of Russia’s Economy of Favours’, in D, Henig, Makovicky, N, (eds.). 2018 Economies of Favour after Socialism, Oxford University Press, pp. 21-49.

Leiva, A, 2000, ‘Cuban Labor Law: Issues and Challenges’. Cuba In Transition, 10.

Lineamientos. (2011). Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución. VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba. Havana, 18 Apr.

Łoś, M, 1990, The Second Economy in Marxist States, London: Macmillan.

Malighetti, R, 2004, Il Quilombo di Frechal. Identità e lavoro sul campo in una comunità di discendenti di schiavi. Raffaello Cortina.

Marcus, G, 2013, ‘Experimental forms for the expression of norms in the ethnog-raphy of the contemporary’. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 3(2) 197-217.

Morris, J, & Polese, A, 2015, Informal Economies in Post-socialist spaces. Practices, Institutions and Networks, London, Palgrave Macmillan.

Mujal-León, E, 2011, ‘Survival, adaptation, and uncertainty: the case of Cuba’. Journal of International Affairs, 149-168.

Neveling, P, 2014, ‘Three shades of embeddedness, state capitalism as the informal economy, emic notions of the anti-market, and counterfeit garments in the Mauritian export processing zone’. In D, Wood, (ed). Production, Consumption, Business and the Economy: Structural Ideals and Moral Realities, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 65-94.

ONEI, 2012, Anuario Estadístico de Cuba (http://www.one.cu/aec2012.htm)

Pavel Vidal, A, & Perez Villanueva, O, 2012, ‘Apertura al cuentapropismo y la microempresa, una pieza clave del ajuste structural’. In A. Pavel Vidal, O, Pérez Villanueva (eds.). Miradas a la economia cubana: El proceso de actualizacion, La Habana: Editorial Caminos.

Pérez-López, J, 1995, Cuba's second economy: from behind the scenes to center stage. Transaction Publishers.

Pérez Villanueva, O, 2010, ‘Notas recientes sobre la economía en Cuba’. Espacio Laical, 3.

Pertierra, A, C, 2007, Battles, inventions, and acquisitions: The struggle for consumption in urban Cuba. University of London, University College London (United Kingdom).

Pertierra, A, C, 2011, Cuba: the struggle for consumption. Caribbean Studies Press, Coconut Creek, Florida.

Phillips, E, 2007, ‘Maybe Tomorrow I'll Turn Capitalist: Cuentapropismo in a Workers' State’. Law & society review, 41(2), 305-342.

Polanyi, K, & Morrison MacIver, R, 1957, The great transformation (Vol. 5). Boston: Beacon Press.

Polanyi, K, 1977, ‘The economistic fallacy’. Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 9-18.

Prost, A, 2006, ‘The Problem with 'Rich Refugees' Sponsorship, Capital, and the Informal Economy of Tibetan Refugees’. Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1 , pp. 233-253.

Resolution No. 32/2010 of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, in the Ex-traordinary Official Gazette, October 8, 2010.

Resolution No. 42/2013, of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Official Gazette, September 26, 2013, Annex

Ritter, A, 2005, ‘Survival strategies and economic illegalities in Cuba’. Cuba in Transition, 15, 342-359.

Romanò, S, & Echevarría León, D, 2015, ‘Movilidad social y cuentapropismo: reflexiones sobre un estudio empírico en Cuba’. Temas, 84, 37-44.

Romero, M, 2014, ‘El toro por los cuernos: La necesaria transformación de las relaciones de trabajo en el país y el papel de las Ciencias Sociales en ella’. Revista Novedades en Población, 10(20), 125-136.

Russo, C, 2016, ‘From Hero to Zero Commitment and Poverty among Cuban Phy-sicians’. Medicina nei Secoli, 28(2), 449-470.

Russo, C, 2017, ‘Métamorphoses des pratiques professionnelles à Cuba de nos jours. Une perspective ethnographique’. Cahiers des Amériques Latines, 84 (1), pp. 107-124.

Sánchez, J, & García, A, 2014 ‘Análisis de coyuntura. La actualización del modelo económico cubano: evolución, oportunidades, desafíos’. Boletin CEEC, Centro de Estudios de la Economia Cubana, August.

Sampson, S, 1987, The second economy of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 493(1), 120-136.

Yurchak, A, 2013, Everything was forever, until it was no more: The last Soviet generation. Princeton University Press.

Wilson, M, 2013, Everyday moral economies: Food, politics, and scale in Cuba. John Wiley & Sons.


Full Text: pdf

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.