Sharon Qiu
Sharon Qiu
Graduate Lecturer
Governance, Informality, Shortage, Socialism, ROL VS. ROM, Time and Space, Cuba, Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Dr. Sharon Qiu's research focuses on Cuba. In her early career, Dr. Qiu studied Shanghainese elders' living situations in senior care homes. Between 2018 and 2025, she conducted multi-sited fieldwork in Havana, Camagüey, and Santiago for thesis and dissertation research. Through ethnographies, Dr. Qiu specifically looks into Cuban people's sectoral livelihoods and value reforms before and after the pandemic. She oriented the shortage problem into a concern about state capacity and predation in a ROM society like Cuba.
Why is she interested in Cuba? Born Chinese, Dr. Qiu learned much about socialist "facts" in her natal country. She wants to know whether people living under other communist regimes feel the same. Cuba is different from China - in terms of ethnicity, geography, languages, and other cultural differentiations - but they share asynchronous popular responses under similar political configurations. Dr. Qiu has recognized the intensified US blockade and the existing overcentralization in Cuba. She is interested in how the regime sustains itself in a time of global neoliberalism and perhaps, a new round of US imperialism.
Dr. Qiu loves teaching. She has extensive experience lecturing on Anthropology courses at the undergraduate level. Her classes attracted students in and outside academia.
Selected Publications
Forthcoming 2027 Qiu, Sharon. “The MiPyME Next Door: Small Commerce in Contemporary Cuba.” Imágenes/Images, Cuban Studies 57.
Courses Taught
ANTH 312: Political Anthropology
ANTH 302: Peoples and Cultures of Latin America
ANTH 114: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Education
Ph.D. in Cultural Studies, George Mason University
M.A. in Anthropology, Louisiana State University
B.L. in Sociology, Shanghai University of Political Science and Law
Recent Presentations
2026 "The Rise of MiPyMe in Post-pandemic Cuba: Transformation and Challenges to the Private Livelihood" at Association of the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE), Florida International University, Miami, FL
2025 "Cuba’s Shortage in the Post-COVID-19 Time: An Ethnographic Account of Daily Provision" at Public Anthropology Conference, American University, Washington, DC.
2025 "How Bodies Respond to Impoverishment: los Buscos, Inventas, y Qué se Puso" at Annual Congress of Latin American Studies Association (LASA), San Francisco, CA
2024 “The Expansion of Living Struggles: Searching for Alternatives on the Plazas” at Annual Meeting of Cultural Studies Association (CSA), Online
2023 "Governance, Rituality, and Waithood of Public Life in Post-socialist Cuba" at Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA)& Société canadienne d'anthropologie/the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA), Toronto, Canada
2023 "To the End of the Line: Economic Transition, Tourism, and Everyday Waiting in Cuba" at 47th Conference of the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), US Virgin Islands at St. Croix, the United States of America
2019 "Parque Céspedes: Tourism and Market in Post-revolutionary Cuba" at Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA)& Société canadienne d'anthropologie/the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA), Vancouver BC, Canada
In the Media
2026 Video Record of Research Presentation “How MiPyMEs Transform Cuban People’s Private Livelihood” at The Association for the Study of Cuban Economy (ASCE), Florida International University, Miami, FL
2025 Spotlight Residential Fellow Talk “To the End of the Line: The Culture of Informality in Late-socialist Cuba” at Center for Humanities Research, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA