The “Mula Ring”: Material Networks of Circulation Through the Cuban World

Abstract

Resumen Este artículo está basado en quince meses de trabajo de campo etnográfico en Cuba, los EE. UU., México, Panamá y Guyana para describir una red transnacional emergente de circulación de materiales que llamo el “circuito mula.” Muestro cómo los cubanos movilizan vastas redes transnacionales para realizar sus sistemas de circulación de materiales en la actualidad. Estas redes equivalen a una economía en sí misma que está redefiniendo lo que significa ser cubano dentro y fuera de la isla. Muestro cómo esta economía informal se basa en esferas de circulación e intercambio de género preexistentes, así como en nuevas modalidades de poder, cuyos efectos se pueden sentir lejos de la propia isla. De hecho, esta red, que surge de una escasez material histórica desde el socialismo, está conduciendo a la reificación de nuevas estructuras de clase, que la Revolución se había propuesto inicialmente desmantelar.

Swap It on WhatsApp: The Moral Economy of Informal Online Exchange Networks in Contemporary Cuba

“…At the same time, Cuba's options for foreign trade and investment shrunk considerably, with long-time business partner Venezuela's ongoing economic disintegration and Brazil's and Bolivia's shift to right-wing governments (two countries to which Cuba was leasing medical professionals for hard currency remuneration). When COVID-19 led to lockdowns and halted both the international tourism the country is so dependent on and the transnational network of privately operating importers through which material goods are brought to the island (a system that Cearns [2020] has termed the "mula ring"), access to food and other basic necessities became severely affected. 1 Cuban consumers acquire food through an elaborate system of state-run subsidized and unsubsidized markets.…”

“…Consistent with female‐attributed responsibilities of family care, nutrition, provision, and information exchange (in the form of “gossip”), we found that much more women than men were active in group chats dedicated to the selling or exchange of basic necessities like foodstuffs, hygiene products, or household appliances, and they also more frequently acted as providers of information. As Jennifer Cearns (2020) found for the privately organized import system through which global goods reach Cuba (which ground to a halt during the pandemic), women are key to the success of these informal online circulation networks, and indeed, the traditionally “female” sphere of information flow via gossip is of prime importance to their sustainability and expansion. In contrast, resellers—particularly those who also provided home delivery service—were more often men, which aligns with male‐attributed activities such as acquiring things in the public domain.…”

NARRATING THE NATION: Heterotopian Struggles forSelf‐Representationin the Cuban Diaspora

“…This newer cohort of Cubans has primarily migrated to Miami for more pragmatic reasons—namely, to earn money and remit back to family and friends on the island—rather than due to any particular ideological stance on Cuba's government. Moreover, these newer cohorts of Cuban immigrants come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and include more Afro‐Cubans, as well as more Cubans of working‐class origins (Aja 2016; Cearns 2020; Eckstein and Barberia 2002; Scarpaci 2015), the likes of which jars somewhat with the versions of cubanidad memorialized by earlier diasporic cohorts 1 . Secondly, Miami is increasingly a major hub for immigration from across Latin America and the Caribbean, and it has recently seen a particularly large influx of Venezuelans fleeing economic crisis in their homeland (Alvarez 2016; Rivera 2019; Stepick 1994).…”

Fragile connections: Community computer networks, human infrastructures, and the consequences of their breakdown in Havana

“…77Technological equipment not offered in state‐run shops, such as computers, or forbidden to import, such as (until 2019) Wi‐Fi antennas, typically are brought into the country by so‐called mulas who mobilize vast transnational networks to provide their clients with material goods that are otherwise impossible to access (see Cearns 2020). …”