Conceiving Cuba: Reproduction, Women, and the State in the Post-Soviet Era

by Elise Andaya

Received an Honorable Mention for the 2015 First Michelle Rosaldo Prize for a First Book in Feminist Anthropology from the Association for Feminist Anthropology

Winner of the Adele E. Clarke Book Award from ReproNetwork​

After Cuba’s 1959 revolution, the Castro government sought to instill a new social order. Hoping to achieve a new and egalitarian society, the state invested in policies designed to promote the well-being of women and children. Yet once the Soviet Union fell and Cuba’s economic troubles worsened, these programs began to collapse, with serious results for Cuban families.

Conceiving Cuba offers an intimate look at how, with the island’s political and economic future in question, reproduction has become the subject of heated public debates and agonizing private decisions. Drawing from several years of first-hand observations and interviews, anthropologist Elise Andaya takes us inside Cuba’s households and medical systems. Along the way, she introduces us to the women who wrestle with the difficult question of whether they can afford a child, as well as the doctors who, with only meager resources at their disposal, struggle to balance the needs of their patients with the mandates of the state.

Andaya’s groundbreaking research considers not only how socialist policies have profoundly affected the ways Cuban families imagine the future, but also how the current crisis in reproduction has deeply influenced ordinary Cubans’ views on socialism and the future of the revolution. Casting a sympathetic eye upon a troubled state, Conceiving Cuba gives new life to the notion that the personal is always political.

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It was accessible and well written, and provides useful information about a number of socialist programs and reproduction in Cuba. Andaya examines the way socialist development policies have affected women on the island in general, but also on an individual level with the use of different women's stories gained through fieldwork. Andaya looks at the way these policies have shaped reproduction, abortion, women's work in the public and private sphere, and even the complexity of the dual economy and remittances versus state provided goods and services. For me, the most interesting part of the book was when the author outlines how socialist policies are designed not only to aid Cuban women, but also as symbolic capital on the world stage. She outlines the low Cuban infant mortality rate as something that the state prized highly, leading to doctors to be particularly cautious around the care of mothers not only for the sake of their health but for the reputation of Cuba's heathcare as a whole. Andaya paints a nuanced and straightforward picture of reproduction and women in post-Soviet Cuba, with all the complexities and contradictions that come with it. Highly recommended.

[Marina Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elise Andaya, PhD, is a professor at SUNY-University at Albany who specializes in the anthropology of reproduction. Conceiving Cuba is well-written, logically organized, and free from political bias. I found it extremely helpful and thought-provoking! Anyone interested in sexual health, reproductive justice, and/or health disparities among communities in the Caribbean islands should read this book!

[Gage Fossen · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my Caribbean class, and it’s about women in Cuba facing unattainable standards for work and home life. Really interesting!