2026 Theses Doctoral

Returns on Reparto: Music, Capital, and Social Freedom in Reform-Era Havana

Grear, Fern

This dissertation investigates the articulation of musical culture and capitalist social relations in reform-era Cuba. The principal object of study is an urban music scene based in Havana, viewed through its connections to neighborhood groups, government agencies, and transnational investors amid the ongoing legal expansion and ideological entrenchment of private enterprise in Cuba.

Based on long-term fieldwork, the ethnographic focus moves between street corners, nightclubs, and recording studios, tracking the aspirations and affiliations of musicians and fans as they navigate conditions of economic distress, mass migration, and political contestation. In particular, the author examines the implications of structural transformations in the nightlife and recording industries since the 2011 passage of the Communist Party of Cuba’s market-oriented reform guidelines.

The dissertation demonstrates the significance of urban music as a site of political and ethical subject-formation in contemporary Cuba, as it constitutes a privileged space for the articulation of complexly-related, often contradictory desires—ranging from conspicuous consumption and upward class mobility to more solidaristic forms of relatedness and belonging. Reflecting on the untimely traces of revolutionary pasts, the author considers how Cuba’s musical culture might inform a political critique of both technocratic state governance and transnational capitalism, offering lessons for renewed forms of emancipatory politics amid a deepening crisis.