| Description |
This project is to explore the inter-continental extension of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) taking the example of personal mobility between the GDR and Cuba. The focus is on the contract labour programme between these two CMEA countries, in some aspects comparable to the West German Gastarbeiter programme. Contract labour mobility is to be approached as a strand of inter-continental mobilities within the CMEA which linked its European center to its extra-European periphery. In the spirit of the entanglement-line in the field of global history, this project will examine the involvement of the East German and Cuban actors in reciprocal relations and the mutual interests expressed in these relations. This approach embedding the subject in broader perspectives shall make the topic compatible for discussion with migration and development studies. Methods of research are the analysis of archival material, particularly the abundant GDR archives and the archives of the state security both in Berlin, Cuban archival material, and of autobiographical documents, as well as semi-structured narrative interviews with individual actors.
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