The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: a Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race During the Special Period 1995-1997
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2003 The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: A Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race during the Special Period 1995-1997 Michael W. Cornebise University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Geography Commons Recommended Citation Cornebise, Michael W., "The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: A Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race during the Special Period 1995-1997. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2003. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1987 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Michael W. Cornebise entitled "The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: A Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race during the Special Period 1995-1997." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Geography. Lydia Mihelič Pulsipher, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Thomas Bell, Ronald Foresta, Todd Diakon Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Michael W. Cornebise entitled “The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: A Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race during the Special Period.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Geography. Lydia Mihelič Pulsipher, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Thomas Bell Ronald Foresta Todd Diakon Acceptance for the Council: Anne Mayhew Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: A Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race during the Special Period A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Michael W. Cornebise December 2003 Copyright 2003 by Michael Cornebise All rights reserved ii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my wife, Roxanne, and our son, Sammy, for all of their patience and support during the final stages of completion. They have inspired me to achieve my goals through their active encouragement. iii Acknowledgments Without the help of many people, this project would not have been realized. I would like to thank my advisor, Lydia Pulsipher, for all of her time and effort in helping me formulate the project and encouraging me to stay on task. Her countless hours of reading and re-reading many stages of revisions are greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Ronald Foresta, Thomas Bell and Todd Diakon, for their contributions to this work and their willingness to accommodate my hectic schedule. I wish to especially thank Joseph Scarpaci who served as an advisory member to my committee. Joe contributed greatly to the final product and he was instrumental in helping me foster contacts in Cuba. Although too numerous to acknowledge here, I would like to thank all of the kind souls in Cuba who helped me gather information and to overcome obstacles in the field. Each one of them contributed a valuable piece of the puzzle and several became good friends in the process. I would like to thank my family for their never-ending support during this process. They provided me with the time and resources to complete this project. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the McClure Fund for International Research at the University of Tennessee for providing financial assistance for my fieldwork in Cuba. iv Abstract The purpose of this dissertation is to critically examine race and gender as they intersect with tourism development in Cuba during the Special Period in a Time of Peace (Special Period), a government imposed austerity program that followed the loss of important Soviet subsidies in 1989. I hypothesize that tourism development in Cuba during the Special Period betrays the Revolution in that it reconstitutes discriminatory practices along lines of race and gender and hence does not deliver benefits to average Cubans. Indeed, I argue that tourism as presently constructed may subvert the well being of ordinary Cubans. I draw from Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and the wider body of theory collectively referred to as the social construction of space to frame my analysis. I posit that Cuba functions as a de facto hegemonic power and thereby challenges the notion that hegemonies are necessarily associated with capitalist regimes. I demonstrate how socially constructed discourses emerged during the Revolution that support the Marxist notion that socialism eliminates discrimination and inequality. Throughout the course of the Cuban Revolution, the Castro regime has maintained that inequalities of race and gender have been eliminated because the “conditions” for discrimination (i.e., the capitalist modes of production) have disappeared. My data suggest that racism and sexism continue to exist in Cuba and v have become more prevalent during the Special Period in a Time of Peace (1989- present). I base the study on data derived from official and non-official sources along with field data conducted over the course of three excursions from 1995-1997. I also conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis of Cuban tourism literature to examine representations of women and darker-skinned Cubans to test my hypothesis. vi Table of Contents Chapter One: Statement of the Research Problem…………………… 1 A Brief Introduction to the Geography and Colonial History of Cuba ……………………………………………………………... 4 The Cuban Contradiction ………………………………………….. 7 Research Outline …………………………………………………. 29 Chapter Two: Methodology and Theoretical Focus of the Study ….. 32 Methodology ……………………………………………………. 33 A Note on Representational Narratives and Interview Data …… 36 Setting the Theoretical Context: Social Constructions of Space and Gramsci’s Theory of Hegemony …………………………….. 38 The Social Construction of Space ……………………………… 39 The Gramscian Notion of Hegemony …………………………… 43 Chapter Three: Setting the Stage: The Rectification Process and the Special Period in a Time of Peace ……………………………….. 48 The Rectification Process ………………………………………… 50 The Rectification Process and the Changing Status of Women… 57 A History of Dependency ………………………………………… 59 The Economic and Social Side Effects of the Special Period…….. 62 Self-Employment and Jineterismo during the Special Period ……. 68 Chapter Four: The Construction of Race, Racism and Gender in Revolutionary Cuba ……………………………………………… 73 Racial Constructions from the Colonial Period to the Revolution... 74 Race and Revolution ……………………………………………… 84 vii Race and the Special Period ……………………………………… 93 Personal Profile: Race and the Revolution ……………………… 99 Gendered Spaces: Women in Revolutionary Cuba ……………… 107 Gender Relations in Pre-Revolutionary Cuba and the Rise of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) ……………………… 112 Gender Roles in the Special Period …………………………… 125 Chapter Five: Cuba’s Tourism Industry: An In-Depth Analysis…. 130 A Brief History of Cuban Tourism …………………………….. 131 The Period of Initial Tourism Development: 1919-1931…… 131 The Heyday of Cuban Tourism: 1946-1959…………………… 135 Tourism from 1959-1989: The Soviet Era…………………….. 138 The Tourism Industry During the Special Period…………….. 143 The Structural Components of Cuba’s Tourism Industry…….… 148 The Ascendancy of Enclave Tourism………………………… 148 Personal Profile: Cuban Youth and the Tourism Industry…… 152 Apartheid Tourism in Cuba………………………………….. 154 The Social Production of Tourism Space in Cuba during the Special Period…………………………………………………. 159 The Campismo popular: Nature-Oriented Tourism Facilities for Cubans…………………………………………………….. 164 The Discourse of Tourism in the Special Period: The Case of Varadero …………………………………………………… 175 Varadero as Symbol…………………………………………. 177 Personal Profile: A Changed Varadero………………………. 181 viii Personal Profile: Varadero’s Shifting Geography and Lived Spaces ………………………………………………… 183 Varadero and the Crackdowns of 1996……………………….. 185 Personal Profile: Jineterismo in Varadero……………………. 187 Sex Workers and the Castro Regime in the Special Period…….. 192 The Spatial Patterns of Sex Work in Cuba……………………. 197 Some Final Thoughts on Sex Work in Cuba………………….. 200 Chapter Six: Representations of Race and Gender: The Social Construction of Tourism Space through Brochures and Guidebooks……………………………………………………… 204 “Representation” in the Tourism Literature……………………. 205 The Image as a Tool for Scholarship…………………………. 209 Framing the Analysis ………………………………………….. 218 Establishing the Matrix……………………………………….. 222 Discussion of Findings……………………………………….