344 p., Explores continuities and transformations in the construction of Afro-Cuban womanhood in Cuba between 1902 and 1958. A dynamic and evolving process, the construction of Afro-Cuban womanhood encompassed the formal and informal practices that multiple individuals--from lawmakers and professionals to intellectuals and activists to workers and their families--established and challenged through public debates and personal interactions in order to negotiate evolving systems of power. The dissertation argues that Afro-Cuban women were integral to the formation of a modern Cuban identity. Studies of pre-revolutionary Cuba dichotomize race and gender in their analyses of citizenship and national identity formation. As such, they devote insufficient attention to the role of Afro-Cuban women in engendering social transformations.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
477 p., This study is a "deep history" of the British invasion and occupation of Havana and western Cuba (1762-3) at the end of the Seven Years' War. By contextualizing this event within the broader story of intercolonial relations of war, trade, and slavery from 1713 to 1790, it demonstrates that the British occupation was a continuation and expansion of relations that preceded and postdated the invading warships' arrival. These Anglo-Cuban relations were forged through contraband commerce, the British slave trade to Cuba, and the practices of interimperial warfare, all of which undermined Spanish sovereignty in Cuba and linked its populations of both European and African descent to its British colonial neighbors.
