EUC Global Connection – Cuba
The Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change brings together geographers, physical scientists, social scientists, humanities researchers and artists whose innovative research seeks to advance sustainability and social justice. Using field-based science, policy analysis, critical social theory, planning skills, geomatics, and cultural and arts-based approaches, our researchers drive action to address the world’s environmental and urban challenges.
EUC researchers are engaged in collaborative relationships, projects and partnerships with colleagues and institutions around the world. Here are the works we have been doing in Cuba.
EUC Main Researchers in Cuba
EUC Main Partner Institutions in Cuba
EUC Research in Cuba
As one of the most biodiverse and ecologically protected islands in the Caribbean, and recognised for its vibrant culture and revolutionary history, Cuba remains the third most popular overseas destinations for Canadians (after the US and Mexico) with over 1 million visitors every year. Yet, within the challenging geopolitical context of economic blockades and sanctions imposed by the United States, academic exchanges remain limited due to Canadian visa restrictions and delays. Despite these challenges, as a faculty invested in critical scholarship and global social justice EUC has provided an important institutional base for academic diplomacy and intellectual exchange with Cuba. Several initiatives have emerged in the past few years ranging from conference and workshop participation, institutional ties, student visits, co-authored and co-edited publications, visiting scholar appointments, and diplomatic engagements.
In 2019, an Agreement of Academic Collaboration between the University of Havana and York University was renewed after a long hiatus of 15 years. This agreement was initiated to facilitate Professor Ranu Basu’s SSHRC Insight Grant project entitled Subalterity, Education and Welfare Cities: Comparing the experience of displaced migrants in three cities [Havana, Kolkata and Toronto]. The research traces the geopolitical impacts of forced displacement on cities and schools through questions of conflict and displacement in these three cities. As part of the SSHRC project, a working group on the Geopolitics of Education for Peace is exploring international examples around the world related to questions of education, praxis and peace.
Over the past decade, Basu has been involved in institutional activities hosted by the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (ICAP); the Cuban Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples (MOVPAZ), La Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), and local school communities, among others. Basu was hosted as a visiting scholar at the University of Havana FLACSO both in 2019 and 2022, along with MA student Laura Perez Gonzalez on two other occasions. In turn, visitors from ICAP, University of Havana, and FLACSO have visited EUC.
In 2023, collaborators from FLACSO participated at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFM) conferences hosted at York University. Colleagues from the University of Havana included: Professor Luisa Iñiguez Rojas; Professor Reynaldo Jiménez Guethón, President of the Studies on Canada; and the Director of FLACSO, Professor Marta Muñoz Campos. Two sessions on the ‘Geopolitics of Education for Peace’ included ten papers from students and faculty (Anette Jiménez Marata, Patricio Quevedo (students from FLACSO) and Laura Perez Gonzalez, Tamires Da Silva, Aysha Shamsuddin (students from York U); and Professors Julio Fonseca and Ranu Basu (from York University). Pre- and post- conference workshops were held in both in Havana and Toronto. This was an exciting opportunity to invite our Cuban colleagues to Toronto, as attempts in previous years to invite two students had failed as they were denied Canadian visas.
Given Cuba’s internationally renowned education and health care systems within a socialist welfare context, undergraduate students enrolled in the Critical Geographies of Education (EU/GEOG 4700) have, over the years, studied and learned about the historical importance of the Cuban Literacy Campaign. Two workshops (held in 2020 and 2025) are of particular significance as they included the participation of the Cuban Consulate. In 2025, we had the opportunity to invite as guest speakers: Jorge Yanier Castellanos Orta, the Consul General of Cuba in Toronto and Tania Valenzuela Vega, Consul of Cuba in Toronto. Guests also included York University Professor Phillip Kelly, Associate Dean at EUC, and Elizabeth Hill, former trustee of the Toronto District School Board. In 2024, Basu was invited to present the keynote lecture at the XXI International Seminar on Canadian Studies at the University of Havana, inaugurated by the Canadian Ambassador in Cuba, Marianick Tremblay. Diplomatic relations through such academic opportunities have been important to maintaining Cuba-Canada intellectual exchange.
More broadly, writing projects have included journal articles, short videos, and discussions of an edited collection. In 2024, a special double issue of Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme (CWS/cf) focusing on the unique role of Cuban women in the revolutionary process, was published and included the work of Cuban and Canadian academics, artists, poets and activists.
