Haroldo Dilla Alfonso

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Haroldo Dilla Alfonso (born February 26, 1952 in Havana ) is a Cuban historian and sociologist .

Life

Dilla studied history at the University of Havana and graduated in 1972 as a teacher of higher education. First he worked as a history teacher in a pre-university. He later taught American history at the School of Journalism at Havana University and at the Matanzas College of Education . After postgraduate studies in Canada , where he studied micro and macroeconomics and development theory at the Universities of Carleton and Ottawa , Dilla obtained a PhD in urban sociology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne in 2006 .

From 1974 to 1976 Dilla worked as a consultant for perfecting history lessons in higher education in the Ministry of Education. From 1980 to 1996 he was director and researcher at the Center for American Studies (CEA) in Havana, a think tank of the Communist Party of Cuba with good contacts to US universities. Until his immigration to the Dominican Republic he was considered one of the leading socialist intellectuals in Cuba. His specialty was the history of Puerto Rico . However, he was not allowed to travel to this island until 1992.

In the second half of the 1980s, after Fidel Castro had proclaimed a campaign to correct mistakes and called for critical thinking about Cuba's future, Dilla, along with other Cuban scholars at the CEA, began developing scientifically based proposals for reform. They aimed at realizing elements of decentralization, increased political participation of the population, greater ideological diversity and a more efficient economic order within socialism . The associated critical analysis of the current state of Cuban society provoked a tough reaction from the government: In 1996, Raúl Castro described the CEA on Cuban television as the “fifth column of imperialism in the service of the CIA”. Dilla and the rest of the academic leadership were dismissed and the CEA was completely rebuilt. In 1999 he was expelled from the party because of his “theoretical work on socialism and democracy”.

In 2000 Dilla got the offer to work as a lecturer in the Dominican Republic. He accepted the offer and left his home country. From 2000 to 2005 he was General Coordinator for Research at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO). Today he is director of the Grupo de Estudios Multidisciplinarios Ciudades y Fronteras (about: Multidisciplinary Study Group for Cities and Borders) in the Dominican Republic.

Haroldo Dilla has taught as a visiting professor at numerous universities in Latin America, Europe, Canada and the USA. In addition, he worked as a consultant for various international development agencies .

Dilla lives in Santo Domingo today . In his books and articles he continues to advocate left-wing politics in general and emphasizes the need for a functioning welfare state.

Works (selection)

  • Participación y desarrollo en los municipios cubanos. CEA; La Habana, 1993.
  • La democracia en Cuba y el diferendo con los Estados Unidos. CEA, La Habana, 1995.
  • Alternative as de izquierda al neoliberalismo. FIM, Madrid 1997.
  • Community Power and Grassroots Democracy. Zeed Books, NJ, 1997.
  • Mercados Globales gobernabilidad local. Nueva Sociedad, Caracas, 2001.
  • Los recursos de la gobernabilidad en la Cuenca del Caribe. Nueva Sociedad, Caracas, 2002.
  • La migración transfronteriza urbana en la República Dominicana (PDF, 768 kB), Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 2011 (Spanish).
  • Las encrucijadas de la política migratoria cubana (PDF, 201 kB), In: Nueva Sociedad No. 242, November / December 2012 (Spanish).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thèses de l'EPFL, Humberto Aroldo Dilla Alfonso: Border urban intermediation in the Dominican Republic: three case studies. École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne , 2007.
  2. ↑ NUESTRO HOMBRE EN QUIZQUEYA ( Memento of the original from July 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Primavera Didital, April 29, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.primaveradigital.org
  3. ↑ a b c d Louis Proyect: Haroldo Dilla And The Cuban Revolution . Swans, November 17, 2003
  4. ↑ Haroldo Dilla Alfonso ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 61 kB), Universidad de Puerto Rico @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / daarrp.uprrp.edu
  5. ↑ a b Haroldo Dilla Alfonso: The Rise and Fall of a Cuban Think Tank. (English) In: Havana Times . March 27, 2011 (Spanish original here ), accessed December 27, 2012.
  6. ↑ Maurizio Guiliano: El Caso CEA: Intelectuales e Inquisidores en Cuba. Universal 1998 (Spanish), ISBN 978-0-89729-870-4
  7. ↑ Haroldo Dilla Alfonso . CCCB - Center de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, ​​March 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Dilla Alfonso, Haroldo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dilla, Haroldo; Dilla Alfonso, Humberto Aroldo (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban historian and sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana