This special issue of the International Journal of Cuban Studies (IJCS) is concerned with the analysis and evaluation of changes that Cuba has been undergoing , from the empirical and methodological perspectives of culture and institutions. 1 The articles we are presenting highlight the need to widen historical and geographical scopes to grasp the depth of changes and their numerous ramifications , rather than stop at what comes out as events or common sense, often simplified, categories. Most contributions also illustrate the web of relationships between culture-material, revolutionary, religious, political-and institutions, the latter being understood both as organisations at macro and meso-levels, and as norms, behaviours, practices, representations, and imaginaries, addressed at individual levels.