ABSTRACT
Cultural research into tourism and social development in Cuba provides a situated understanding of tourist experiences as forms of cultural exchange and transformation. It appears that through experiential learning, NGO study tours transform tourists. New social movements are distinguished by an expressive politics and their resistances to the developed society' model as the institutions of the welfare state have receded. Global Exchange's Reality Tours (GERT) and Oxfam Community Aid Abroad Tours (OCAAT) were agents of network building by virtue of the intense social experiences they provided tourists. Creating solidarity through networks is linked to the capacity of tourism to bring about subjective changes in the conditions of Cuban people. The myth focuses on rural life as more wholesome and spiritually rewarding and portrays the idealised countryside as Arcadian' in contrast to the anonymity of the city.
