Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier

Cuba is currently undergoing a severe, multidimensional crisis affecting everyday life across food, sanitation, health, and energy. More than ever, Cubans are coping with conditions that, for many, have become unbearable: mosquito-borne illnesses, daily hours-long blackouts, severe shortages of cooking gas, lack of running water, and widespread food insecurity. Amid regional geopolitical shifts and growing uncertainty about Cuba’s future, the revolutionary government has recently declared a national state of war. At the same time, Cubans find themselves en la caliente –in the thick of it –actively fighting, struggling, inventing, creating, and adapting with what little they have, enduring conditions that persist day after day. Using the metaphor of the pressure cooker, this presentation explores the “valves” through which Cubans release and manage the pressures of daily life amid ongoing social and economic strain. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of ethnographic research in Eastern Cuba, the presentation examines multiple forms of pressure—blood, air, and sound—through a multimodal format that captures both enduring struggles and emerging challenges.