Ethnocuba

This long-term ethnographic research examines the ways Cubans make sense of their world in light of drastic and swift social and economic change in a climate of seeming political uncertainty. The project began by focusing on identity politics and national identity in baseball and then evolved into an examination of soft power, foreign policy, and internationalisation of revolutionary sport and now examines the temporalities of the Revolution.

Cuban-flags

Project timeframe

Ethnographic research began in 1995 and continues at present. It consists of three phases:

  • 1995–2001: Playing Hardball
  • 2001–2008: Away Games
  • 2009–present: Hauntings of Havana

Project aims

This work aims to provide a clear chronicle of how Cubans lives have transformed in light of the dramatic changes that Cuban society has undergone since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It addresses:

  • how Cubans negotiate their sense of self through participation in the national sport
  • the ways Cuban sport is used for a variety of political, economic and social purposes whilst still defining what it means to be Cuban
  • Cubans’ everyday strategies for survival in uncertain circumstances

Project findings and impact

The complex ways that Cubans deal with precarious, uncertain existences are innovative, creative, and evocative. Their involvement in baseball is a performance of what remains important to Cubans even as the ideological messages of the Revolution do not mesh with the lived reality of Havana. The use of sport as a pillar of the Revolution was important for the government’s foreign policy but now is at greater risk than the other stalwart successes of the Revolution. Finally, the Revolution is not constant, but is a constantly changing environment that reshapes understandings of space and time on an everyday lived reality.

Dr Thomas Carter has written extensively on the role of sport in Cuban society, including his award-winning book - The Quality of Home Runs - which explores the passion, politics and language of Cuban baseball.

The-Quality-of-Home-Runs-cover

Find out more about and how to purchase Dr Carter's book on The Quality of Home Runs.

Research team

Dr Thomas Carter

Output

Carter, T (2008)  The Quality of Home Runs: The Passion, Politics, and Language of Cuban Baseball. Durham: Duke University Press. WINNER 2009 Outstanding Book Award, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport

Carter, T (2016) Cuba’s Challenges Hosting the 1991 Pan American Games and the Spectacle of the Revolution’s ‘Soft’ Power. International Journal of the History of Sport. 33(1-2): 186-202.

Carter, T (2014) Game Changer: The Role of Sport in Revolution. International Journal of the History of Sport. 31(7): 735-746.

Carter, T (2013) The (Soft) Power of Sport: The Comprehensive and Contradictory Strategies of Cuba’s Sport-Based Internationalism, with Robert Huish and Simon C. Darnell. International Journal of Cuban Studies. 5 (1): 26-40.

Carter, T (2012) The USA and Sporting Diplomacy: Comparing and Contrasting the Cases of Table Tennis with China and Baseball with Cuba in the 1970s, with John Sugden. International Relations. 26 (1): 101-121.

Carter, T (2011) Absence Makes the State Grow Stronger: Preliminary Thoughts on Revolutionary Space, Spectacle, and State Legitimacy. Cuban Intersections of Literary and Urban Spaces. Carlos Riobó, ed. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp 49-64.

Carter, T (2008) Of Spectacular Phantasmal Desires: Tourism and the Cuban State’s Complicity in its Commodification of its Citizens. Leisure Studies. 27 (3): 241-257.

Carter, T (2008) New Rules to the Old Game: Cuban Sport and State Legitimacy in the Post-Soviet Era. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. 15 (2): 194-215.

Carter, T (2007) Pelota en la Plaza: Some preliminary considerations on spatializing culture in Cuba in Image, Power and Space: Studies in Consumption and Identity. Alan Tomlinson and Jonathan M. Woodham, eds. Aachen: Meyer & Meyer. Pp. 97-112.

Carter, T (2007) A Relaxed State of Affairs?: On Leisure, Tourism, and Cuban Identity in The Discipline of Leisure: Embodying Cultures of “Recreation”. Simon Coleman and Tamara Kohn, eds. Oxford: Berghahn. pp 127-145.

Carter, T (2006) Cuba: Community, Fans, and Ballplayers in Baseball without Borders: The International Pastime. George Gmelch, ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp 147-159.

Partners

This project has been partially funded over the years with grants from the Institute of Iberian and Latin American Research and The British Academy as well as additional support from the International Sociology of Sport Association.