Inventado: Between Transnational Consumption and the Gardening State in Havana's Urban Spectacle

Abstract

This article presents a theoretically oriented photographic essay on consumer practices and urban spectacle, gathered from a visit to Havana in June of 2006. Employing Zygmunt Bauman's conception of the modern state as a “gardening state,” and other widely theorized depictions of global consumer culture as a force of imaginary investment and ephemerality, the article considers the imbrication of state and market as illustrated in an impressionistic photographic study of everyday urban spectacle in the streets of Havana. The article concludes with a consideration of the plight of everyday Havanans in their effort to improvise survival strategies between the forces of a highly controlling state and a nascent culture in transnational consumerism.