NARRATING THE NATION: Heterotopian Struggles for Self-Representation in the Cuban Diaspora

Abstract

Miami's sizeable Cuban diaspora has long used museums and galleries to produce and preserve their sense of community, united through the loss inherent to exile. Recent influxes of migration from Cuba (and beyond) are increasingly interpreted as a threat to the cultural forms many consider an “authentic” preservation of something now lost to Castro's Revolution. Drawing upon fifteen months of ethnographic research within several of these organizations, this article argues that a recent proliferation of new museum spaces and their physical distribution across the city indicate growing anxieties and conflicts between diasporic cohorts. Drawing upon Foucault's concept of heterotopias, the article maps these conflicts onto other measures of difference, such as ethnicity and socioeconomic class. The article concludes that hegemonic and normative public spaces are being weaponized in a diasporic struggle over Cuban identity, while newer arrivals are responding in kind through the inauguration of counter-spaces of cultural representation.