Catholic Material Culture, Socialist Society, and State Power in Cuba, 1959–1978

The article analyses the histories of Catholic material culture in revolutionary Cuba. It illustrates and discusses how the Cuban Church and individual Catholics have navigated the revolutionary everyday with practices of material religion. Moving from the first years of the Cuban Revolution (1959 onwards) to the late 1970s, the article presents and analyses examples of the ways in which material religion has intersected with the state ideology, politics, and the performance of the Revolution in Cuba. Additionally, the article discusses the meanings given to material representations of religion in the revolutionary reality by Cuban Catholics themselves: how religious material culture has constituted a means for Catholics to navigate the juxtaposition of religious worldviews and the socialist state power.