The Return of Race-based Inequalities in Contemporary Cuba: Analysing the Impact of Past Migration and Current Reforms

Our research project aims to examine and understand the forces driving Cuba’s growing race based inequalities, most notably the role and impact of migration, remittances and foreign citizenship in the context of the island’s current market-oriented economic reforms. In particular, we will examine: 1.the socio-racial implications of current remittance sending / receiving practices; 2. the use of remittances, investments and/or loans, and material goods from family members abroad, towards private business ventures on the island; 3. the role of mobility (either through additional foreign citizenship which many Cubans of Spanish descent have been able to acquire of late as well as Cuba’s recent migration reform), in facilitating economic opportunities for some sectors of Cuban society and how this is in turn contributing to new racial inequalities.

The project stands at the centre of global debates on inequality, migration, and development, and focuses in particular on the persistence of race-based social inequalities. As such it contributes to the debate on the developmental impact of remittances (Orozco 2013; Ratha 2005; for sceptical positions: Abdih et al 2008; Chami et al 2008; Kapur 2003); on the efforts to overcome the racial stratification in ethnically heterogenous societies (de la Fuente 1995, 1999, Helg 1995; Robaina 1990); and on the social impact of market reforms in once centralised but gradually opening economies (e.g. Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2009).

At the heart of the research project lies a nationwide survey with more than 1,000 Cubans which provides us with a unique data set on the relationship between migration/remittances, foreign citizenship/mobility, and the increasing racial inequalities during Cuba’s current economic reforms. The survey is complemented by in-depth, formal interviews which facilitates qualitative insights into the underlying social processes and dynamics and provides the study with a high degree of ethnographic ‘thickness’.