When Biographies Cross Necrographies: The Exchange of ‘Affinity’ in Cuba

ABSTRACT

In Cuba one might encounter a lively exchange occurring between the living and the dead (los muertos), one which is often described in terms of ‘affinity’. This involves a reciprocity among the biographies of the former, the past (biographies) and present condition (‘necrography’) of the latter, who are not in the least limited to ancestors or previously intimate to the living persons. The intensification of such exchange takes place within a dynamic and multiple field of identifications and differentiations, wherein the dead slowly become dead in a parallel process of un-becoming living, through becoming ‘affinity’ muertos of their living counterparts. This could be said to be the point of what is going on, but things, when they get so radically mobilised through exchange, might also go beyond the point of conclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Cuba
• death
• exchange
• biography
• divination

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, under Grant: SFRH/BPD/76656/2011. I am also deeply grateful to Dr Dimitri Tsintjilonis, Dr Diana Espírito Santo and Dr Magnus Course for their invaluable comments and Angela Riviere and Rebecca Rotter for their crucial help, linguistic and otherwise. I also had the chance to present versions of the paper in three occasions: Firstly, at a seminar organised by the ‘Greek Society for Ethnology’ in Greece; secondly, at the 2014 ASA and thirdly, at one of the weekly seminars of the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, UK. I wish to thank the organisers of all those events for inviting me, as well as its participants for their extremely useful feedback. It goes without saying that I am deeply grateful for the support and comments of the editor of Ethnos, Dr Nils Bubandt, and the two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.