Culture, nation and social cohesion: a scrutiny of revolutionary Cuba

摘要

During the 1960s era and beyond, official Cuban cultural thinking sought to address, among many other issues, the colonial legacy of cultural partition and cultural subjugation. It is advanced in this article that the revolution sought to achieve its objectives by endorsing, amongst other measures, the concept of 'transculturation', a theoretical position earlier brought to prominence by Fernando Ortiz, Cuba's leading anthropologist at the time. The article endeavours to show that, though Cubans have come to display a remarkable devotion to their immediate cultural heritage, they likewise acknowledge and champion the inter-connectedness that exists between their culture, the broader Caribbean territory, as well as the arts universally. The article inspects Cuban cultural spokespersons' perceptions of their cultural realities, including their discernment of broader political contexts-such as colonialism, racism, slave practices, economic exploitation, cultural and social oppression, and the resultant human struggle -which ultimately inform and shape the nation's cultural ethos. This broad outlook, it will be seen, similarly sustains the formation and growth of a cohesive and unified nation. In sum, it is contended that Cuban national culture policy is structured upon a uniquely progressive, all-encompassing and, above all, independent theoretical framework, rather distinct from the cultural policies of the prevailing socialist models of the time.