Imagined individuality

If no man is an island, if we are inherently social creatures, how should understand people’s claims to be valuable individuals, separate from their environment? Based on ethnographic research among self-employed Cuban market traders, this article analyses performances of imagined individuality people cultivate a notion themselves as ties. In Cuba, work in the growing private sector provides foundation upon which assert personal independence. order and realize these notions individuality, one needs fulfill gendered expectations material distribution. Hence, independence requires mobilization unequally distributed resources.