Cultures of participation for equitable development in Cuba and the UK.

This project seeks to enable socially and epistemologically just collaboration between disabled people, academics and cultural practitioners in Cuba and the UK. We will explore how Cuba's grassroots, intersectoral cultures of participation can inform and enhance disability theory and practice internationally. Likewise, actors in Cuba want to learn from UK experiences of disabled people's self-advocacy and co-production, especially within learning disability and neurodiversity, and of ways of working online to facilitate disabled people's full sociocultural participation. Recognising intersections of ableism and colonialism, the steering group is majority Cuban and majority disabled.
We will build and expand the network in four phases. Phase 1 begins at the most local level (three municipalities in mountainous Granma Province) because that is where Cuba's practice is most exceptional. Every Cuban municipality has a cultural 'module' (cultural centres, library, theatre, etc.), which means that accessing, promoting and practising culture and the arts happens through local networks rather than only in cities. This cultural participation is woven into wider cultures of participation as both a citizenship right and a citizenship duty, where development is created by and with communities and seen always as at once economic, social and cultural. This holistic approach leads to intersectoral working - the key Cuban partner for this project, the Commission for Pursuing and Monitoring the Application of the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities - coordinates 22 bodies working to enhance disabled people's inclusion, including disabled-led organisations advocating for blind and D/deaf Cubans and those with physical or motor disabilities, as well as the ministries of Labour, Education and Health. In this phase, relationship-building and intercultural translation of ideas and practices around disability is key. It will include a visit to Granma to see projects, meet actors and take part in a cultural-academic event that includes methodological workshops on participatory theory and practice.
Phase 2 brings the Cuban team to the UK to network with universities, disabled-led organisations and disability arts organisations, facilitated by existing connections of UK investigators from the Centre for Research in Criminology, Community, Education and Social Justice (De Montfort University), the Centre for Research on Cuba and the School of Medicine (University of Nottingham) and the Autism Centre (Sheffield Hallam University). This stage is vital to making links between international academic-cultural discourse and the situated action research regularly undertaken by academics and disabled-led organisations through the University of Granma's 11 local university centres and its Centre for Local Development. Limited opportunities for international engagement tend to go to Havana-based intellectuals and creative practitioners, creating barriers for provincial actors seeking to access international expertise and share their work.
Phase 3 focusses on creating concrete outputs, lasting collaborations and structures to ensure the network's longevity. Key foci are: 1) systematic support, including translation/interpretation, for at least three UK-Granma cultural/academic collaborations; 2) roll-out of a co-created online forum tailored to disabled Cubans in the context of limited technology and connectivity; 3) documenting practice and network activities in co-created, accessible materials.
Phase 4 expands the network to include disabled people, practitioners and academics across Cuba and internationally through opening up the online forum, a final event in Granma that includes invited delegates from other provinces and hybrid participation from international delegates, academic sharing in journals and an edited book, and sharing accessible materials and cultural/artistic outputs developed in Phase 3.