Abstract
This paper explores how Cuba’s retired citizens navigate the daily stresses of economic precarity and a lack of social services, while also offering a critique of the Revolutionary government’s failure to make good on its promise of a “secured old age.” According to the most recent United Nations report on world aging, Cuba is quickly becoming the fastest greying population in the world (2015, 2017). That many young Cubans are also choosing to leave the island to pursue greater socio-economic opportunities abroad presents wide-ranging and complex social and economic challenges for Cuba’s elder population. Having been left without children to care for them, I ask in what ways Cuban elders have had to renegotiate their understanding of kin relations in the wake of an impending demographic and social crisis. I analyze life history narratives to understand how Cuban elders themselves have implemented networks enabling informal and formal practices of mutual care and self-care while also exploring how the socialist state has sought to relieve the economic burden of aging. In illuminating these issues, I engage with anthropological studies on aging, kinship, as well as state socialism while also exploring the tensions between patterns of aging and citizens’ relationship with the state.
Presenters
Elix ColonPhD Candidate (ABD), Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Social and Cultural Perspectives on Aging
KEYWORDS
Social Impacts, Social Support Networks, Cultural Perspectives, Family Relations
