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In Defending Rumba in Havana, anthropologist and dancer Maya J. Berry examines rumba as a way of knowing the embodied and spiritual dimensions of Black political imagination in post-Fidel Cuba. Historically a Black working-class popular dance, rumba, Berry contends, is a method of Black Cuban struggle that provides the community, accountability, sustenance, and dignity that neither the state nor the expanding private market can. Berry’s feminist theorization builds on the notion of the undercommons to show how rumba creates a space in which its practitioners enact deeply felt and dedicatedly defended choreographies of reciprocity, refusal, sovereignty, devotion, and pleasure, both on stage and in their daily lives. Berry demonstrates that this Black corporeal undercommons emphasizes mutual aid and refuses neoliberal development logics, favoring instead a collective self-determination rooted in African diasporic spiritual practices through which material compensation and gendered power dynamics are negotiated. By centering rumba to analyze how poor Black Cubans navigate gendered and racialized life, Berry helps readers better understand the constraints and yearnings that move diasporic Black struggles to seek refuge beyond the bounds of the nation-state.
Price: $29.95
Pages: 336
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Publication Date:
07 January 2025
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781478031338
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
“It’s not often that one gets to read something that builds so beautifully and interdisciplinarily on the theoretical areas with which one has been engaged while also inspiring new directions for thought and action. Defending Rumba in Havana is analytically exciting and methodologically caring, offering new avenues for fruitfully engaging the embodied formulation of life otherwise in the wake of both the plantation and the revolutionary state.”—Deborah A. Thomas, author of, Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation: Sovereignty, Witnessing, Repair
“Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Defending Rumba in Havana is among the best Cuban ethnographies in the Post-Fidel era. Maya J. Berry’s work is especially important because of its connections to the religious and spiritual as well as the sort of infrapolitical views of Cuban political-economy in which race and culture are not only imbricated but constitutive and inequitably remunerative. This book will be an enduring and leading work in anthropology, Black studies, gender and feminist studies, and Cuban studies.”—Jafari S. Allen, author of, There’s a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life
"Maya Berry's analysis of Cuban rumba is riveting."—Yvonne Daniel, Medical Anthropology Quarterly
"Defending Rumba in Havana is a wonderful contribution to the field of anthropology, ethnomusicology, feminist studies and African religious studies."—Tony Kail, Anthropology Book Forum
"This book is field-defining and a boon for anthropologists and scholars of Cuban studies, Black studies, feminist studies, performance studies, religious studies, and dance studies. ... Run, don't walk—or better yet, dance—to get a copy and behold the brilliance and heart in page after page, step after step."—Elizabeth Schwall, Journal of Anthropological Research
"Berry’s intense engagement with the [Black Havana] community makes this an insightful and very valuable book."—Susanna Sloat, New West Indian Guide
“Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Defending Rumba in Havana is among the best Cuban ethnographies in the Post-Fidel era. Maya J. Berry’s work is especially important because of its connections to the religious and spiritual as well as the sort of infrapolitical views of Cuban political-economy in which race and culture are not only imbricated but constitutive and inequitably remunerative. This book will be an enduring and leading work in anthropology, Black studies, gender and feminist studies, and Cuban studies.”—Jafari S. Allen, author of, There’s a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life
"Maya Berry's analysis of Cuban rumba is riveting."—Yvonne Daniel, Medical Anthropology Quarterly
"Defending Rumba in Havana is a wonderful contribution to the field of anthropology, ethnomusicology, feminist studies and African religious studies."—Tony Kail, Anthropology Book Forum
"This book is field-defining and a boon for anthropologists and scholars of Cuban studies, Black studies, feminist studies, performance studies, religious studies, and dance studies. ... Run, don't walk—or better yet, dance—to get a copy and behold the brilliance and heart in page after page, step after step."—Elizabeth Schwall, Journal of Anthropological Research
"Berry’s intense engagement with the [Black Havana] community makes this an insightful and very valuable book."—Susanna Sloat, New West Indian Guide
Maya J. Berry is Assistant Professor of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 1
1. Black Inclusion, Black Enclosure 47
2. Black Feminist Aptitudes 88
3. Sacred Swagger and Its Social Order 129
4. Moving Labor across Markets 169
5. Underworld Assembly 219
Conclusion 249
Epilogue 259
Notes 267
References 281
Index 299
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 1
1. Black Inclusion, Black Enclosure 47
2. Black Feminist Aptitudes 88
3. Sacred Swagger and Its Social Order 129
4. Moving Labor across Markets 169
5. Underworld Assembly 219
Conclusion 249
Epilogue 259
Notes 267
References 281
Index 299