33315 The Sparks of Civil Society in Cuba:
Afro-Cuban Cultural Production, Art
Collectives, and the Struggle for a New
Public Sphere
Zoya Kocur
Introduction
In the literature on Cuban civil society the relative lack of discussion
of the role of art and cultural production in general, and Afro-Cuban
culture in particular, is striking. This is perhaps understandable as
most civil society research comes out of the areas of political theory
and philosophy, and increasingly from the social sciences, but in over-
looking the key role of cultural production, the debate does not reflect
the spectrum of activity that is contributing to the formation of civil
society in Cuba. The focus of this paper is the role of Afro-Cuban art
and cultural production in the formation of Cuban civil society, in par-
ticular Afro-Cuban cultural production since the 1970s with attention
to visual art as well as the influence and role of Afro-Cuban religious
traditions.
As defined here, cultural production encompasses all forms of cre-
ative expression, including visual and performance art, literature,