Perdiendo el Miedo a la Oscuridad : Ethnographic Fieldwork on Digital Resistance and Structural Exploitation in Post-11J Cuba

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines the intersections of structural deprivation, state-imposed scarcity, and systemic exploitation in contemporary Cuba, focusing on sexual and labour exploitation, digital repression, and transnational visibility. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted across Havana, Matanzas, Pinar del Río, Sancti Spíritus, and Cienfuegos in early 2026, it analyses how economic precarity, authoritarian governance, and constrained digital infrastructures shape conditions of vulnerability, particularly among young people and workers in informal and state-linked economies. The study situates these dynamics within broader historical and political-economic contexts characterised by scarcity, surveillance, and regulated mobility. Field material suggests that transactional exploitative sexual and labour practices are frequently experienced in relation to economic necessity and asymmetrical power relations, while state-linked labour programmes may reproduce forms of dependency and restricted autonomy. The 11 July 2021 protests (11J) are used as a case study of digital mediation, illustrating how mobile connectivity enabled moments of collective visibility while remaining subject to surveillance, shutdowns, and repression. Digital platforms are thus analysed as simultaneously enabling communication and embedding it within structures of control. The thesis argues that sexual and labour exploitation in this context can be understood as structurally conditioned within overlapping political, economic, and communicative systems. It further considers how transnational narratives and solidarity practices shape external interpretations of Cuban realities. By combining ethnographic observation, triangulation, and secondary sources, the study contributes to research on authoritarian governance, structural vulnerability, and mediated forms of agency in contemporary Cuba.