Explore Cuban women’s economic survival techniques through seminar on Women’s Work in Special Period Cuba; Making Ends Meet

The abrupt loss of Soviet financial support in 1989 resulted in the near-collapse of the Cuban economy, ushering in the almost two decades of austerity measures and severe shortages of food and basic consumer goods referred to as the Special Period.

Find out more about how Cuban women survived during this time by joining Dr Daliany Jerónimo Kersh, Assistant Professor in International History at Richmond, who is hosting a free seminar, open to the public, on how women cleverly combined various forms of paid work to make ends meet during Cuba’s Post-Soviet ‘Special Period’ economic crisis (1989-2005).

‘Women’s Work in Special Period Cuba; Making Ends Meet’ will be held on Thursday 2 May, 6.00-8.00pm, at the School of Advanced Study, University of London (Room 234, Second Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU).

The free seminar is based on Dr Kersh’s recently published book with the same title.

Through the innovative framework of individual and collective memory, Daliany Jerónimo Kersh brings together analysis of Cuban press sources and oral histories to illustrate how women, given their role as primary caregivers and managers of household economies, were disproportionately affected by austerity measures and severe shortages of food and basic consumer goods.

Unable to survive on devalued state salaries alone, they often employed a variety of informal and illegal earning strategies; this regression into gendered work such as cooking, sewing, cleaning, reselling, and providing sexual services precipitated by the post-Soviet crisis marked a return to pre-revolutionary gendered divisions of labour.

Interested in finding out more? Click here for more details on the seminar.