The nocturnal negotiations of youth spaces in Havana
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- March 22, 2019
- Creator
-
Reilly, Matthew J.
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Geography
- Abstract
- Based upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Havana, this dissertation explores the linkages between youth and public space by arguing that the spatial practices of youth in public space reveal that young Cubans are negotiating the current period of change and uncertainty by creating new social spaces and identities. This project focused on a thirteen-block area of Calle G, a centrally located boulevard in Havana that is appropriated every weekend by youth from all over the city. This public space serves as a venue in which to display the various lifestyles of Cuban youth, lifestyle choices that are often predicated on access to hard currency. The impact of broader socio-economic changes underway in Cuba is clearly reflected in the discourse of these young people and the identity politics they engage in. Youth are creating their own social space outside of the sphere of state regulation and influence, and this venue provides Cuban youth with a space to explore and create their own identities in relation to local as well as transnational cultural flows. Therefore much of this project evaluates the capacity of public space to empower a form of associational life for the youth in the city. Furthermore this project addresses the role of urban culture through both music and fashion in the evolution of youth subcultures. Findings reveal the importance of these cultural flows in the lives of youth and the ways that youth adapt and appropriate these cultural references for their own identities. In this way, Cuban youth are also actively transforming and appropriating global flows of information, culture, and technology and not simply negotiating conditions of socio-economic uncertainty. This work documents the fact that youth cultures are spatially open and are one of the main entry points for cultural globalization. For the youth of Havana, through their nocturnal negotiations, their play and their imagination, they have transformed the abstract space of Calle G into a collectively created alternative social space. Therefore these youth are claiming their spatial rights, their rights to be in public and be a public, thus they are claiming their right to the city.
- Date of publication
- May 2009
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Advisor
- Cravey, Altha
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Language
- Access right
- Open access
- Date uploaded
- October 11, 2010
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