Political Principles of the Cuban Socialism Doctrine: Towards the History of Emergence and Development

Socialism as a political trend and a system of certain ideological positions has been experiencing a kind of renaissance in recent years. Cuban socialism is a special phenomenon of recent history, which has continuously existed and developed for six decades in the most difficult conditions of the North American foreign economic blockade and in the presence of other threats of a socio-political nature. Solving numerous issues of practical and transformative activity, the Cuban socialist doctrine generalized and formulated many new theoretical propositions, a number of which will be able to significantly influence the formation of an updated socialist doctrine claiming the ideological and semantic possibility of a world alternative.The paper analyzes the basic principles characterizing the doctrine of Cuban socialism in matters of ethics, relations with the church, the foundations of education, assessing the prospects of the institution of statehood in the 21st century, and evaluating other political projects that had points of joint intersection with Cuban socialist theory and practice.Cuban socialism is a specific phenomenon that arose as a result of a number of objective and subjective factors. By the end of the 1950s the century-and-a-half struggle of Cubans against colonial and then neocolonial exploitation were intensified by the Soviet vector and its influence in the international arena as the second great power with the aggravation of the Cold War. These factors together with the “island life” on a par with the Catholic, peasant community of the majority of the population, the sacrifice and service of several generations of the young Cuban elite, the combination of the cult of courage and guerrilla traditions with the special cruelty and repressiveness of the Spanish colonial apparatus of the 21st century, and then relying on American support of the Cuban dictatorships of the first half of the 20th century is a set of factors that gave rise to the “spring effect” in the social consciousness of the island society. In addition to objectively determined reasons, a huge role in the long-term maturation of the conditions for the emergence of the Cuban socialist project was played by the traditional personality for the Ibero-American culture. All of the above would have been impossible outside of the long-term activities of a whole galaxy of brilliant Cuban political leaders.

The Conventional and Modern Uses of Water Buffalo Milk in the Philippines

In Southeast Asia, milking of livestock is not common. In the Philippines, water buffalo (carabao) milk has been used since the Spanish colonial period of the 16th century. Milk is processed into cheese (kesong puti) or candy (pastillas). These customs are found in a few areas on the Islands of Luzon and Visayas. However, in 1996, following the launch of the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC), the uses of modern milk have been practiced nationwide using Murrah (buffalo), which produces more milk than a carabao. This paper analyzes the dairy transition currently occurring in the Philippines from the conventional uses of carabao milk to the modern uses of Murrah milk. Intensive fieldwork was broadly conducted in conventional and modern milk use areas of the country, with water buffalo management and milk use systems researched using participatory observation and interview methods. This study delves into how the conventional uses of water buffalo milk have helped support the livelihood of special farmers and whether recent government-backed projects, such as enhancing the ability of water buffaloes to produce milk, have made carabaos dispensable. The shift to modern milk uses, which relies on buffalo milk, has become a national project, in order to improve the subsistence of peasant farmers. This paper concludes that the modern dairy farming of Murrah is becoming popular in farming societies close to the PCC and that the dairy culture has changed from being a minor conventional regional system to a major industrial farming and business system to sustain the lives of local small-scale farmers.

An Early Power-Sharing Regime: The Alternativa System in Spanish Colonial America

The alternativa system in Spanish American religious orders was an early example of deliberate electoral engineering to address the problem of social division. It was subject to criticism, however, for stealing voters’ freedom, ignoring the rights of candidates, and restricting access to competent officeholders. Moreover, it often gave disproportionate power to a minority faction. Hence, the alternativa remained, at best, an expedient, short-term solution to the problem of factionalism. Examining the canonists’ debate about the alternativa is instructive because it reveals the darker moral side of power-sharing regimes whenever and wherever they occur.

OJEDA, Almerindo. Project for the Engraved Sources of Spanish Colonial Art (PESSCA), 2005-2021.

El Proyecto para el Estudio de las fuentes grabadas del arte colonial (PESSCA por sus siglas en inglés) busca identificar los grabados que sirvieron de modelos al arte producido en las colonias hispano-portuguesas de los siglos XVI y XIX. PESSCA es parte las Humanidades Digitales, pues es un proyecto humanístico que emplea herramientas digitales. Y lo hace en todas las fases de la investigación (búsqueda, adquisición, almacenamiento, procesamiento, y recabación de imágenes, así como la difusión, actualización, y preservación de sus hallazgos). A futuro, PESSCA busca desarrollar un sistema de reconocimiento automático de imágenes que asista en el descubrimiento de los grabados que inspiraron obras de arte coloniales, quizás empleando sistemas de reconocimiento facial o anotación automática de imágenes.

Shifting the Frontiers of Early Modern Science: Astronomers, Botanists, and Engineers in Viceregal New Spain during the Habsburg Era, 1535-1700

<p>This doctoral thesis offers a big-picture view of the material and cultural history of science in colonial Latin America. It argues that science in the Viceroyalty of New Spain can be best understood not as isolated from centres of European culture, but rather as a productive extension of Old World and Indigenous techniques for observing and quantifying nature. Moreover, it also shows that Mexico City quickly became a central node in the production and funding of science within the Spanish Empire, rather than being peripheral to early modern scientific discourse. It examines the nerve centre of Spain’s overseas territories, the viceregal capital of New Spain, as a hub not only of funding but also of vibrant activity for Spanish and Novohispanic science from 1535 to 1700. Current historians of Spanish and Spanish-colonial science have demonstrated that, in contrast with depictions in older histories of early modern science, Spain was an active producer of technologies of discovery and natural resource extraction as well as works on theoretical and applied mathematics. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Crown and other private corporate bodies—including the religious orders—supported the production of new forms of knowledge. I will refer to these throughout as “science” and to its practitioners as “scientists.” Scientists who feature prominently in this thesis set precedents for later scientific endeavours in Latin America and Europe. Sixteenth-century botanist Francisco Hernández, cartographer Francisco Domínguez y Ocampo, and astronomer Jaime Juan established some of the first large-scale observations and records of an expansive New Spain. In the following years a diverse set of seventeenth-century hydraulic engineers fielded a variety of solutions to a complex set of topographical and political issues in the viceregal capital. At the same time, a lively group of astronomer-mathematicians contributed to an increasingly global network of scientific discourse. Many of these scientists and intellectuals owned notable personal libraries. This thesis examines the implications of mobile books—locally-produced as well as European—as they contributed to the production of new knowledge in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Powerful Spanish and criolla women patronized or supported the promulgation of scientific writings in New Spain. Additionally, indigenous authors disseminated the concepts of early modern science to their readers within colonial-era Nahua chronicles. Hobbyists also interacted with professional and well-known scientific thinkers at local discussion clubs or via correspondence and improvised their own instruments based on available texts. Local book printers and authors of popular early modern science works are also included in this investigation as they played key roles within the social networks of science. This thesis relies on archival manuscript sources while synthesizing the rigorous scholarship of many specialists in order to tell the story of how a major sixteenth-century Spanish colonial city possessed the resources to engage in a variety of early modern scientific undertakings. It re-examines documents concerning the history of science in New Spain in order to ask new questions about the role of scientists’ instruments, personal book collections, and correspondence with colleagues abroad upon the influence of their professional writings. By assembling a selection of key case studies, the thesis shows that sixteenth-century royal investments in scientific institutions on the Iberian Peninsula bore fruit in New Spain during the late 1500s and the 1600s as diverse communities of scientists flourished in Mexico City and its seaports. In sum, this is a study of the movement of early modern scientists, their tools and ideas as well as the concentration of these resources in the geographical and cultural surroundings of New Spain.</p>

Shifting the Frontiers of Early Modern Science: Astronomers, Botanists, and Engineers in Viceregal New Spain during the Habsburg Era, 1535-1700

<p>This doctoral thesis offers a big-picture view of the material and cultural history of science in colonial Latin America. It argues that science in the Viceroyalty of New Spain can be best understood not as isolated from centres of European culture, but rather as a productive extension of Old World and Indigenous techniques for observing and quantifying nature. Moreover, it also shows that Mexico City quickly became a central node in the production and funding of science within the Spanish Empire, rather than being peripheral to early modern scientific discourse. It examines the nerve centre of Spain’s overseas territories, the viceregal capital of New Spain, as a hub not only of funding but also of vibrant activity for Spanish and Novohispanic science from 1535 to 1700. Current historians of Spanish and Spanish-colonial science have demonstrated that, in contrast with depictions in older histories of early modern science, Spain was an active producer of technologies of discovery and natural resource extraction as well as works on theoretical and applied mathematics. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Crown and other private corporate bodies—including the religious orders—supported the production of new forms of knowledge. I will refer to these throughout as “science” and to its practitioners as “scientists.” Scientists who feature prominently in this thesis set precedents for later scientific endeavours in Latin America and Europe. Sixteenth-century botanist Francisco Hernández, cartographer Francisco Domínguez y Ocampo, and astronomer Jaime Juan established some of the first large-scale observations and records of an expansive New Spain. In the following years a diverse set of seventeenth-century hydraulic engineers fielded a variety of solutions to a complex set of topographical and political issues in the viceregal capital. At the same time, a lively group of astronomer-mathematicians contributed to an increasingly global network of scientific discourse. Many of these scientists and intellectuals owned notable personal libraries. This thesis examines the implications of mobile books—locally-produced as well as European—as they contributed to the production of new knowledge in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Powerful Spanish and criolla women patronized or supported the promulgation of scientific writings in New Spain. Additionally, indigenous authors disseminated the concepts of early modern science to their readers within colonial-era Nahua chronicles. Hobbyists also interacted with professional and well-known scientific thinkers at local discussion clubs or via correspondence and improvised their own instruments based on available texts. Local book printers and authors of popular early modern science works are also included in this investigation as they played key roles within the social networks of science. This thesis relies on archival manuscript sources while synthesizing the rigorous scholarship of many specialists in order to tell the story of how a major sixteenth-century Spanish colonial city possessed the resources to engage in a variety of early modern scientific undertakings. It re-examines documents concerning the history of science in New Spain in order to ask new questions about the role of scientists’ instruments, personal book collections, and correspondence with colleagues abroad upon the influence of their professional writings. By assembling a selection of key case studies, the thesis shows that sixteenth-century royal investments in scientific institutions on the Iberian Peninsula bore fruit in New Spain during the late 1500s and the 1600s as diverse communities of scientists flourished in Mexico City and its seaports. In sum, this is a study of the movement of early modern scientists, their tools and ideas as well as the concentration of these resources in the geographical and cultural surroundings of New Spain.</p>

The Last Mission: Religion and Colonial Francoism in Spanish Representations of Africa

During Francoism, Spanish cultural production on Equatorial Guinea placed missionaries in a central narrative role, exalting their evangelizing labor. This article concentrates on the representation of the colonial mission in works by lay authors who shared an ideological affinity with the regime and received its institutional support: the documentary Una cruz en la selva (1946), the film Misión blanca (1946) and the novel Tierra negra (1957). These works branded a kind of Spanish Catholic colonialism as superior to other European models, but despite their propagandistic intention, they also reveal a series of anxieties and contradictions inherent to the Spanish colonial project.