Class analysis across the “Capitalist/Communist” divide Practicing the anthropology of labor in Kerala and Cuba

Efforts within the anthropology of labor to help push back against capitalist exploitation and dispossession by sharpening our critical comprehension of these processes are equally relevant in societies whose recent history is shaped by Communism, which imagine themselves “outside of capitalism”. But how to identify key capitalist processes in such places where both Communists in power and new identity-focused political activists prefer to avoid talking critically about class? This chapter shows the way that I have gone about this as an anthropologist of labor during fieldwork in Kerala (India) and Cuba. It demonstrates that by moving between activists’ political perspectives and the everyday lives and discourses of ordinary workers, (dis)connections become clear that ultimately can lead to a better understanding of key processes of capitalist restructuring unfolding in these societies.