ABSTRACT
This chapter builds on anthropological fieldwork carried out among state-employees in Havana during eight months in 2006 the same year Fidel Castro announced that he was in too poor health to continue as the leader of the country. In Emily Martin's writings, neoliberal personhood serves as a powerful image shaping not only how they see us in our working lives, but also how it describes the immunological system and how they understand manic depression. The impossibility of relying solely on salaried work and the need to diversify income-generating activities and venture into the informal market is obviously far from unique to Cuba. Zelizer's work on modern USA shows how there is a persistent scepticism towards economy in certain areas of life. The emic notion of inventor and the related terms resolver and luchar have received attention by various scholars studying Cuba.
