“¿Dónde se meten las mugeres en la Habana?”: Distinción y vulnerabilidad femenina en Cuba durante el siglo XIX

Authors

  • Jorge Camacho University of South Carolina-Columbia

Keywords:

Cuba, marquillas, cigarreras, mulatas, mujeres, distincion

Abstract

In this essay, I am interested in analyzing how differences in taste, values and vulnerability are created in the bourgeois society of early 19th-century Cuba, and how the dynamics of distinction and classification are evident in both pictorial and narrative representations. What makes a white woman vulnerable in Havana? What vulnerability is portrayed in the cigarette labels that refer to the mulatas? To answer these questions, I will rely on the testimonies of travelers who visited Havana in the mid-19th century, the novel Cecilia Valdés ([1839]-1882) by Cirilo Villaverde, and a poem by José Jacinto Milanés, alongside Pierre Bourdiou’s ideas.

Published

2025-02-14

How to Cite

Camacho, J. (2025). “¿Dónde se meten las mugeres en la Habana?”: Distinción y vulnerabilidad femenina en Cuba durante el siglo XIX. A Contracorriente: Una Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos, 22(2), 124–149. Retrieved from https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/2373

Issue

Section

Articles / Artículos