In 2017 American embassy staff workers in Havana, Cuba reported hearing strange sounds that they understood were the direct origin of a series of unusual sensory events that they were experiencing – headaches, dizziness, ear pain, vertigo, and cognitive problems. Within weeks, Canadian embassy workers in Havana reported hearing similar noises and they also complained of neurological symptoms that they linked to the sounds. In the five years since the first reports, there have been additional claims from other embassy locations globally and a range of government-led reports examining what the sounds were and how they could cause what American doctors claimed to be brain injuries.

Dr. Denielle Elliott’s paper considers the reports about the Havana Syndrome and the differing explanations from Canadians, Americans, and Cubans as experts attempt to make sense of the embassy workers’ claims. The Havana Syndrome emerged as a deeply contested site – political, sonic, ecological, and embodied. In this paper I trace the ways in which sensorial experiences become political.

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