Lecturer in Latin American Studies, Dr Rebecca Ogden, has been awarded an AHRC CHASE funding for her proposal for a collaborative doctoral award. Rebecca’s proposal, ‘Emerging digital cultures in contemporary Cuba: Narrative, community and identity‘ will begin in September 2021, co-hosted by Modern Languages at Kent and the Instituto Cubano de Investigación Cultural Juan Marinello (ICICJM) in Havana, Cuba (the foremost centre of interdisciplinary research into culture in Cuba). The chosen candidate will be co-supervised by Dr Rebecca Ogden and Professor Núria Triana Toribio at Kent, and Dr Hamlet López at the ICICJM.
Rebecca Ogden says, “This collaborative doctoral scholarship will trace and interrogate emerging forms of digital culture in contemporary Cuba, with a view to expanding our understanding of how Cubans participate, as cultural producers and consumers, in this rapidly changing digital landscape, and the impact of new digital cultural production on definitions of ‘revolutionary culture’. The partnership will also lead to the creation of a new cultural archive.
Development of the Internet in Cuba has been marked by unequal access, sluggish connection speeds, prohibitive costs and censorship. However, the gradual introduction of web access through state sanctioning of 3G mobile access in 2018 and of private home wifi connections in 2019, alongside an increased circulation of new digital hardware and infrastructure (often via citizens’ resourceful ‘workarounds’) has radically altered Cubans’ access to and participation in online culture, media and communication. The research will represent a major contribution to our understanding of how technology, culture and identity intersect in contemporary Cuba.
The Hispanic studies department has strong links with educational and cultural institutions in Cuba, and these links with be further strengthened and extended by the partnership.”