The Red Barrial Afrodescendiente: A Cuban Experiment in Black Community Empowerment

Abstract

In November 2012, a group of Black women across Cuba came together to form the Red Barrial Afrodescendiente (“Afrodescendant Neighborhood Network”, or RBA). Within its group of initiators were educators, academics, artists, writers, scientists, and activists, all who worked at various levels in both governmental and grassroots capacities. The goal of this newly formed network was to form generative discussion opportunities surrounding race, racism, gender, sexuality, and discrimination in Cuba, with a community pedagogy model inspired by Paulo Freire’s method of popular education. Since the humble beginnings of the RBA, the group has grown into a vast network of workers and individuals from various sectors of Cuban civil society, from cultural workers and academics to educators and youth, all involved at varying levels to change the landscape of dominant conversation surrounding discrimination, historical memory, culture, and intersecting identities in Cuba.

Keywords:

• African Diaspora
• Afro-Cuba
• Afro-Cuban Art
• black activism
• black art
• popular education
• radical pedagogy
• Red Barrial Afrodescendiente

Notes

1 Cf. Maritza López McBean, Hildeslisa Leal Díaz, and Damayanti Matos Abroeu, “Red Barrial Afrodescendiente: Sucesos y prácticas en La Habana, Cuba,” Cuban Studies, Vol.48, 2019, pp.192-201.

2 Paolo Freire (1927-1991) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who is credited with the development of, and international advocacy of critical pedagogy. He is best known for his influential work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and his influence in Cuba has been pervasive since the 1990s.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geoffroy de Laforcade

Geoffroy de Laforcade (Ph.D., Yale University), is a Professor of Latin American, Caribbean and World History at Norfolk State University. An expert on Cuba and Argentina, he has published and spoken widely on issues of migration, labor, race, diaspora and memory. He co-edited Transculturality and Perceptions of the Immigrant Other (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011); The How and Why of World History (Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt, 2014; and In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2015), which won the Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award in 2017. A native of France, he translated a number of scholarly works, among them Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (University of California Press, 1991), Herman Lebovics, True France: Wars Over Cultural Identity, 1900-1945 (Cornell University Press, 1994), and Gérard Noiriel, The French Melting Pot: Immigration, Citizenship, and National Identity (University of Minnesota Press, 1996). Dr. de Laforcade is a member of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) Working Group on “Afrodescendants and Counterhegemonic Perspectives”, and a Research and Associate Editor for the Institute of Anarchist Theory and History in Brazil (IATH/ITHA). He also serves on the Editorial Board for the Broader South of the journal ATL Intersectional Journal Social Science, and as a book review editor for Global South: Critical Perspectives and Choice (Association of College Research Libraries).

Devyn Springer

Devyn Springer (they/them pronouns) is a community organizer, writer, cultural worker, and art historian who previously studied African and African Diaspora Studies, and Art History, at Kennesaw State University. As a community organizer they have worked with various groups in Atlanta, across the U.S. South and Global South as well, including It’s Bigger Than You, Rise Up!, YES Body, and Workers World Party; they have conducted community political education surrounding prisons, racism, imperialism, and various other topics since 2012. In 2015 they helped create Docs Not Glocks, a research initiative that examined the intersection of mental health with police violence against Black people. Their writing has been featured in various outlets including Paper, Afropunk, Truth-Out, Mondoweiss, ShadowProof, Sputnik, RT America, UPROXX, the San Francisco Bay View, Philadelphia Printworks, and New INC, among others. Devyn’s first book, Grayish-Black, was published in 2016, followed by their critically acclaimed art show and performance Interactions/Blackness in Atlanta 2017. They previously served as editor for the journal Pamoja, and currently serve on the Editorial Board for the journal ATL Intersectional Journal of Social Science. They are the Digital Outreach Coordinator for the Walter Rodney Foundation, led by the family of the late revolutionary Walter Rodney, which Devyn passionately refers to as their “intellectual, activism, and radical awakening home.”