Some New Directions in My Project on Cuban Digital Rhetorics

This passed week, I've had a number of conversations and discoveries that have really helped me further develop the digital humanities project I've been working on the past few months. In a brief conversation with Matt Frye about his own research he mentioned the term, "leapfrogging." "Leapfrogging" communicates the idea that areas that have not developed "stable" or "up-to-date" technological and economic infrastructures might rapidly move themselves forward through the adoption of contemporary systems without going through a series of intermediary steps of development. With purveyors of hardware, technology, telecommunications, etc. lining up to "update" Cuba's existing technological infrastructure in the wake of an agreement between President Obama and Raul Castro to relax trade and travel restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba,

Cuba purportedly stands to experience an unprecedented amount of growth in terms of material access, or at the very least an influx of material contexts in which users could perhaps own or operate digital technologies and participate as users on the Internet and Web 2.0. This "influx of material contexts" is very important to keep in mind given the various economic realities and debilitating restrictions imposed on Cuban citizens attempting to own or operate digital technologies regardless of the setting in which such use actually takes place. Indeed, according to a recent Bendixen & Amandi Poll for Univision Noticias - Fusion in collaboration with The Washington Post, it was reported that only 16% of Cubans living in Cuba have access to the Internet. And while these poll results might lead some to simply assume that Cubans living in Cuba as a whole would stand to benefit from a surge in material access, it is still important to keep in mind the manner in which the aforementioned economic realities and restrictions have tempered the use of digital technologies and the Internet in profoundly different ways for various populations.

In the past couple of years, Roots of Hope, an organization comprised of students and young professionals seeking to empower youth in Cuba to become authors of their own futures, have organized events in which computer programmers and coders from all over the globe are invited to explore the prospects for combating Internet restrictions in Cuba and to develop ideas, applications, and "innovative technology solutions" that speak directly to the existing hardware, literacy, and access limitations that serve as the foundation for the relationship between Cuba and technology.

These are very important contexts for me to consider as I move forward with my project in the digital humanities, in that they challenge me to re-consider the approach I am taking to the notion of digital rhetorics among Cubans living in Cuba. With all of these and more interested parties vying to enter the conversation around Cuba's digital and telecommunications future, I remain focused on how we might imagine and enact these futures in conversation with Cubans living in Cuba themselves.