Cearns, Jennifer; (2021) Introduction to el Paquete. Cuban Studies , 50 (1) pp. 99-110. 10.1353/cub.2021.0008.

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Abstract

Cuba's peer-to-peer digital file sharing network el paquete (the package) has gained global attention in recent years (Helft 2015; García Martínez 2017; San Pedro 2015; Parish 2018), viewed as a domestic response to a widespread scarcity of internet access, and even an inventive answer to Netflix (Ayuso 2015, see also Farrell, this issue) from an island that remains prohibited from officially consuming much international digital content (by both the embargo and Cuban state internet restrictions). The network has grown and consolidated itself over the past eight or so years to become the primary source of information and entertainment for the majority of Cubans across the island; indeed, some even consider it the island's largest (unofficial) employer (Press 2015; Fazekas and Marshall 2016). The Cuban poet and essayist Victor Fowler Calzada considers it "one of the most important cultural phenomena the country has experienced in the past quarter century" (Johnson 2015).

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