Images of Insurgency: reading the Cuban Revolution through military aesthetics and embodiment

This chapter concerns the intimate politics of militarisation to contribute to a growing body of work on how political violence is constituted through material and aesthetic forms. In this chapter, the visuality of the Cuban revolution is brought into focus, first through its strategies of urban guerrilla warfare and then its nation-building programmes. A growing global visual culture in the 1950s and 1960s made image and self-presentation techniques critical to the transnational impact of the Cuban revolution.

This chapter considers how popular culture shaped the interpretation of events by photographers, journalists and designers, who were often inspired by the anarchic forms of militarism the rebels adopted. At times the 'barbudos' came into view as hypermasculine, complete with cowboy hats, long hair, cigars, and a cheerful contempt for uniformity; they created images of insurgency that were a compelling form of cultural exchange for revolutionary Cuba. While they appeared to highlight creativity and subversive visual practices, their performances were also clearly gendered and racialised.

This research draws on a range of primary sources including photographs, speeches, biography and posters to consider the significance of aesthetics and embodiment to understanding the images, textures and experiences that characterise twentieth century military insurgencies.