Conversation: the material turn in Cuban studies
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Rachel Price, member of the editorial board of JLACS; the magazine’s executive editor, Isis Sadek; the guest editor of the dossier “Material Turn in Cuban Studies”, María A. Cabrera Arús; and two of the authors, Jacqueline Loss and Michael Bustamante, discussed the highlights of this special issue on Cuban material culture (Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies vol. 30, no. 2). What are the implications of the recent shift towards material culture in Cuban studies? Could material culture studies help fill some of the analytical gaps produced by the lack of access to some archives? The debate revolved around the specific contributions of the two invited authors (on the efforts of the Cuban state to define and regulate contemporary art and music, and the sending of packages by Cuban exiles to the island in the decade 1960, respectively) while also discussing the other essays included in the dossier, and weighing in on the relationship between materiality and the recent protests that took place in various Cuban cities on July 11, 2021. Although material culture is often approached in opposition to theory or ideology, these authors believe otherwise.
