Experts at Empire State College

Nadine Fernandez
Associate Professor, Area Coordinator, Gender and Family Studies
Syracuse

Expertise

• Contemporary Cuba (particularly race and gender issues, and social impact of tourism)

Profile

Fernadez's research focuses on the social impact of globalization in contemporary Cuba where economic changes are dramatically remaking the social landscape since the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989. Cuba is in a period that has been termed “late socialism,” characterized by a fascinating hybrid of socialist and capitalist economic and political elements.She is interested in the local ramifications of shifts in the global economy. In particular, her research explores how these shifts affect the fluid practices and meanings of ethnicity, race, gender, and sexuality in Cuba. These interests are reflected in the following streams of research.

Fernandez's forthcoming book addresses the central question of how racial inequalities have continued to be produced and reproduced despite the political, social, and economic transformations of the Cuban revolution that aimed to achieve equality for all citizens. The book titled, “Revolutionizing Romance: Interracial Couples in Contemporary Cuba,” brings historical background, ethnographic detail and personal narratives to the understanding of interracial couples’ experiences in contemporary Cuba and the social impact of the economic crisis of the 1990’s. She unravels how the interplay of deeply rooted nationalist ideologies of mestizaje (race mixing), long-standing racial hierarchies, and the dream of socialist equality shapes the quotidian experience of race in the shifting social terrain of late-socialist Cuba.
Her interest in contemporary race and gender relations and the effects of globalization have led her to examine the social impact of tourism, in particular the racialization of female prostitution in Cuba. As Cuba inserts itself into the global tourism industry various types of sex and “romance” tourism have also emerged on the island undermining one of the Revolution's earliest reforms eradicating prostitution. Her work here looks at how race colors the way Cubans perceive relationships with foreigners. Black and mulatto women involved with foreign men are often accused of prostitution, while white women can couch often similar relationships with foreign men as romances. Broadly conceived this research speaks to the racialization of female labor and the gendered nature of globalization.