The Struggle for the Market

Life and Hustle in Cuba's New Economy

Ståle Wig

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

University of Pennsylvania Press
04 November 2025

Social & cultural anthropology; Political ideologies; Central government policies; Political economy; Privatisation

A firsthand look at how business owners in Havana navigate the changing Cuban market and state

The Struggle for the Market tells the story of Cuba's economic reforms in the 2010s, focusing on the experiences a group of small business owners known as cuentapropistas. These business owners were the most directly affected by the transition from the state-centered planned economy of earlier decades to an economy in which the state had legalized dozens of job categories for small-scale enterprise—including work in private transport, restaurants, and street vending—and which offered citizens wider opportunities to register a private business. Here, anthropologist Ståle Wig narrates a story of the market reforms and the challenges and triumphs that small-scale entrepreneurs have experienced.

By asking what it means for a state to shape a market, and for people to become part of such a project, Wig reveals how small business owners created economic and ethical order for themselves, within a system that both empowered and constrained them. The author, who spent twenty months living and working in Havana's bustling marketplaces, offers a firsthand account of the lives, hopes, and frustrations of people caught up in this moment of historic development. The result is an intimate, firsthand look at how Cubans struggled to make money and meaning as new hierarchies emerged in their society. Ultimately, The Struggle for the Market discounts common assumptions of linear change in favor of an examination of Cuba's economic transition that reveals the intricate dynamics of market and state in a socialist context.

By: Ståle Wig
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781512828450
ISBN 10: 1512828459
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 04 November 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Ståle Wig is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo.

Reviews for The Struggle for the Market: Life and Hustle in Cuba's New Economy

""A beautifully written ethnography of ordinary people's lives in Cuba's new economy. Tracking through multiple realms of life--law, kin, capital, work, state, and self--this is a model of contemporary anthropology.""-- ""Sian Lazar, University of Cambridge""