London Metropolitan University Research Institutes
 

Adrian Hearn: China and Cuba 30/07/08

Cuba's Engagement with China: Domestic and Regional Implications

Dr. Adrian H. Hearn
Institute for International Studies
The University of Technology Sydney

Wednesday 30th July, 2008

In this seminar Dr Adrian Hearn of the China Studies Centre at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, examined how the intensifying economic collaboration between Cuba and the People's Republic of China has impacted the island's domestic development strategies and the character of its relations with Latin America.

He described how in 2005 China became Cuba's second largest trading partner (after Venezuela) and that Chinese industrial manufacturing firms have identified Cuba as a potential production platform for expanding their Latin American market.

Dr Hearn used empiral research in both Havana and China to show how Chinese investment is strengthening Cuba's export capacities in the areas of medicine and natural resources. He also suggested that the relationship had beneifits for both sides in terms of strengthening the efforts of Cuba (together with Venezuela and Bolivia) to challenge U.S. hegemony in the region and for China in its long term goal of fgaining recognition in the region over Taiwan.

At the local level, Dr Hearn explained how the impact of the intensifying relationship between Cuba and China is particularly evident in Havana's Barrio Chino (Chinatown), which the Cuban State has identified as a priority zone for tourism development. In January 2006 the government of Old Havana dissolved the Barrio's ethnic Chinese board of administrators and assumed direct control of the district's management.

This has provoked concerns from within the Cuban Chinese community about the centralization of local modes of administration, including the ability to autonomously develop relations with collaborators in China.

The seminar drew together these local and international developments to illustrate that China's engagement with Cuba and Latin America has brought both opportunities and challenges. While it has opened a profitable new destination for natural resource exports, it has also provoked concerns in Cuba and the region about protecting national interests and about China's strategic ambitions in the Western Hemisphere.

Dr Hearn's powerpoint is available by clicking on the icon below:

Adrian Hearn Cuba China 30/07/08

33 people attended the seminar and 14 copies of Dr Hearn's newly published book (see below) were sold.

This event was recorded and a DVD is available. To obtain a copy please send a cheque for £5.00p made payable to 'London Metropolitan University', a return address and a note saying that you want the film of this event to the following address:

IISC
London Metropolitan University
31 Jewry St.,
London
EC3 2NY


Dr. Adrian H. Hearn is a research fellow at the China Studies Institute, The University of Technology Sydney. Adrian has conducted research in Cuba (three years) and China (ten months), and is currently undertaking a study of Chinese engagement with Latin America.
He has worked as a project assessor and translator for several international NGOs in Cuba, and has a special interest in processes of interaction between official state institutions and unregistered community organizations. He is author of Cuba: Religion, Social Capital, and Development (Duke University Press 2008- see below) and editor of Cultura, Tradición, y Comunidad: Perspectivas sobre el Desarrollo y Participación en Cuba (Imagen Contemporánea and UNESCO Center for Human Development 2008).

Cuba

Religion, Social Capital, and Development

By Adrian H. Hearn

When Cuba's centralized system for providing basic social services began to erode in the early 1990s, Christian and Afro-Cuban religious groups took on new social and political responsibilities. They began to work openly with state institutions on projects such as the promotion of Afro- Cuban heritage to generate tourism revenue, and community welfare initiatives to confront drug use, prostitution, and housing decay. In this rich ethnography, the anthropologist Adrian H. Hearn provides a detailed, on-the-ground analysis of how the Cuban state and local religious groups collaborate on community-development projects and how they work with the many foreign development agencies operating in Cuba. He argues that the growing number of collaborations between state and non-state actors has begun to consolidate the foundations of civil society in Cuba.

While conducting research, Hearn lived for one year each in two Santeria temple-houses: one located in Old Havana and the other in Santiago de Cuba. During those stays, he conducted numerous interviews: with the Historian of Havana and the Conservationist of Santiago de Cuba (positions roughly equivalent to those of U.S. mayors), acclaimed writers, influential leaders of Afro-Cuban religions, and many citizens involved in community-development initiatives. Hearn draws on those interviews, his participant-observation in the temple-houses, case studies, and archival research to convey the daily life experiences and motivations of religious practitioners, development workers, and politicians. Using the concept of social capital, he explains the state's desire to incorporate tight-knit religious groups into its community development projects, and he illuminates a fundamental challenge facing Cuba's religious communities: how to maintain their spiritual integrity and internal solidarity while participating in state-directed projects.

Published in July 2008. 248 pages, 23 illustrations

978-0-8223-4196-3, paper $22.95

978-0-8223-4180-2, library cloth edition $79.95






 

   Company Information    Page last updated 01 May 2009     Contact Page Owner (Steve Wilkinson)