A novel and interdisciplinary volume on the dynamics of migration with comparative case studies of the Caribbean experience

Since the arrival of the Spanish conquerors at the beginning of the colonial period, Cuba has been hugely influenced by international migration. Between 1791 and 1810, for instance, many French people migrated to Cuba in the wake of the purchase of Louisiana by the United States and turmoil in Saint-Domingue. Between 1847 and 1874, Cuba was the main recipient of Chinese indentured laborers in Latin America. During the nineteenth century as a whole, more Spanish people migrated to Cuba than anywhere else in the Americas, and hundreds of thousands of slaves were taken to the island. The first decades of the twentieth century saw large numbers of immigrants and temporary workers from various societies arrive in Cuba. And since the revolution of 1959, a continuous outflow of Cubans toward many countries has taken place--with lasting consequences.

In this book, the most comprehensive study of international migration in Cuba ever undertaken, Margarita Cervantes-Rodriguez aims to elucidate the forces that have shaped international migration and the involvement of the migrants in transnational social fields since the beginning of the colonial period. Drawing on Fernand Braudel's concept of longue duree, transnational studies, perspectives on power, and other theoretical frameworks, the author places her analysis in a much wider historical and theoretical perspective than has previously been applied to the study of international migration in Cuba, making this a work of substantial interest to social scientists as well as historians.

An important building block for further advancing world-system theory, this book considers the theory from the perspectives of global processes and antisystemic movements, feminist theory, and the aftermath of the colonial system. The volume addresses three myths tied to Eurocentric forms of thinking: objectivist and universalist knowledges, the decolonization of the modern world, and developmentalism. All three myths, the authors argue, conceal the continued hierarchical and unequal relations of domination and exploitation between European and Euro-American centers and non-European peripheral regions. In this volume, world-system scholars address these and related aspects of the modern/colonial capitalist world-system. Addressing the myth of universalist knowledge, the volume reminds us that our knowledge is situated in the gender, class, racial, and sexual hierarchies of a specific region in the world-system, while the coloniality of power additionally situates our knowledge. The volume further argues that the postcolonial era retains the hierarchy of colonialism, and the possibility of national development without global structural changes is one of the greatest 20th-century myths. Taking these perspectives into consideration, the contributors examine and help to refine classic world-system theory.