{"product_id":"defending-rumba-in-havana-maya-j-berry-9781478031338","title":"Defending Rumba in Havana: The Sacred and the Black Corporeal Undercommons","description":"In \u003ci\u003eDefending Rumba in Havana\u003c\/i\u003e, anthropologist and dancer Maya J. Berry examines rumba as a way of knowing the embodied and spiritual dimensions of Black political imagination in post-Fidel Cuba. Historically a Black working-class popular dance, rumba, Berry contends, is a method of Black Cuban struggle that provides the community, accountability, sustenance, and dignity that neither the state nor the expanding private market can. Berry's feminist theorization builds on the notion of the undercommons to show how rumba creates a space in which its practitioners enact deeply felt and dedicatedly defended choreographies of reciprocity, refusal, sovereignty, devotion, and pleasure, both on stage and in their daily lives. Berry demonstrates that this Black corporeal undercommons emphasizes mutual aid and refuses neoliberal development logics, favoring instead a collective self-determination rooted in African diasporic spiritual practices through which material compensation and gendered power dynamics are negotiated. By centering rumba to analyze how poor Black Cubans navigate gendered and racialized life, Berry helps readers better understand the constraints and yearnings that move diasporic Black struggles to seek refuge beyond the bounds of the nation-state. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Maya J. Berry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1478031336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781478031338\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Duke University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/07\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.09lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d","brand":"Maya J. Berry","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46526643503359,"sku":"9781478031338","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_11b03c81-8b0b-4225-b6ac-6b4c2e71d3e8.jpg?v=1737556761","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/defending-rumba-in-havana-maya-j-berry-9781478031338","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}