This book examines the centrality of baseball in the construction and contestation of Cuba’s nationalist self-image during the chronic economic shortages and emergent social disparities of the current ‘special period’ in Cuban socialism. When knowing exactly what constitutes or should constitute ‘Cuba’ is under close official and popular scrutiny, the symbols and meanings emerging out of Cuba’s national game and national passion become critical for understanding how ‘Cuba’ is being imagined and realized.
Focusing on how the moral authority of the Cuban state is produced through baseball, this research considers the ways in which the Cuban state attempts to revitalize socialism by projecting through the game.
Eastman also investigates how and why the game has become fertile ground for popular critiques of the mounting failures of the Cuban state, asking how does the world of Cuban baseball, a world dominated by Afro-Cuban men and marked by the economic privileges afforded all Cuban athletes, challenge Cuban state efforts to maintain a supposedly raceless and classless society, to promote a sense of ‘Cuban-ness’ for all.
This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society.
