"Cuba y Puerto Rico have for long been considered sister islands, fighting together against the influences of the Spanish Empire and the United States. In their shared experience of Spanish colonization and USA interventions, how do San Juan and Havana residents perceive and use space today in their particular socio-political contexts and how does this affect the resident’s sense of citizenship? I closely engage with the different urban spaces using ethnographic data and photographs taken during my recent fieldwork, creative texts describing said spaces and case studies examining the formation of racial, gender and class identities." 

 

"This thesis is informed by two and a half months of ethnographic research conducted in the barrios of Centro Habana and El Vedado in Havana, and Santurce and Río Piedras in San Juan. From June to mid-August 2014, I was able to interview a total of 76 participants: 40 in Havana and 36 in San Juan. "