NACDI NOW! Canada and Cuba’s Cooperative History: Thinking Through the Current Crisis

Event Description: 

NACDI Now is a series from the North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative that brings together scholars and practitioners in conversation to highlight new and innovative work in global cultural relations. 

This online session brings together Karen Dubinsky (Strangely, Friends: A History of Cuban-Canadian Encounters), Asa McKercher (Entangled Terrains and Identities in Cuba: Memories of Guantanamo) and Lana Wylie (Other Diplomacies, Other Ties: Cuba and Canada in the Shadow of the US). Our conversation will explore the common ground created by the panelists’ research on the history of cooperative relations between Cuba and Canada and between Cubans and Canadians. We’ll also consider the degree to which this history provides a lens through which to view the contemporary moment in US-Cuba-Canada relations.

To register for this free event, click here.

This event is organized by the North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative in partnership with the Wilson Institute for Canadian History, McMaster University.

Panellists: 

Karen Dubinsky (History and Global Development Studies, Queen’s University).

Asa McKercher (Public Policy and Governance, St. Francis Xavier University).

Lana Wylie (Political Science, McMaster University).

Karen Dubinsky is a professor in the departments of History and Global Development Studies at Queen’s University. Her recent research explores migration, cultural diplomacy, and tourism between Canada and Cuba. Strangely, Friends: A History of Cuban-Canadian Encounters (2025) examines the personal and cultural connections between Cuba and Canada from 1953 to the present through the lives of Canadian professionals, artists, and activists living on the island and Cuban musicians living in Canada.

Asa McKercher is the Steven K. Hudson Research Chair in Canada-US Relations at St. Francis Xavier University. An associate professor of Public Policy and Governance, he focuses on Canadian-US relations, including foreign policy, and North American politics and culture. He is the co-author of Entangled Terrains and Identities in Cuba: Memories of Guantánamo (2019), which explores the complex entanglements between the US and Cuban identities through the lived experiences of first-generation Black Cuban American who worked at Guantanamo.

Lana Wylie is an associate professor in Political Science at McMaster University. Her research focuses on Canada and US foreign policy and Latin American and Caribbean politics.  She has published extensively on Canadian-Cuban relations, including the 2018 anthology Other Diplomacies, Other Ties: Cuba and Canada in the Shadow of the U.S. She is co-editor of a forthcoming collection, Other Diplomacies and Canada: Representations and Relationships Beyond the State.