This article aims to establish a dialogue between approaches in economic anthropology and the anthropology of ethics and morality, assessing the complementarity and the possible points of juncture between these two theoretical lines of enquiry, their analytical potential, as well as their limits. It highlights the importance, for research on moral economies, of uncovering what counts as ‘economic’ and as ‘moral’ in a given empirical context, and proposes the analytical lenses of economization and moralization as a productive way to address such question. The theoretical contribution is grounded in ethnographic research in Spain that examines how Cuban migrants seeking to improve their lives and livelihoods navigate different political-economic systems and changing material conditions. While discussing their trajectories, future projects, and the expectation they associate with ‘capitalism’, ‘communism’ and their respective changes and crises, people are led to articulate different moral economies that delineate conflicting regimes of value and evaluations of what makes for a good life, and what ought to be the place of the economic in it. The analysis of the empirical material enables us to consider various instantiations of the moral economy, to explore the different realities the term can cover, and to clarify the scope and applicability of this notion.

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Remittances have moral dimensions that, albeit implicitly addressed in migration literature, have not yet been the focus of explicit attention and analysis by social scientists. Building on recent developments in the anthropology of ethics and morality, this article proposes theoretical and analytical pathways to address this important but often neglected aspect of remittances. It does so mainly via a critical analysis of existing scholarship on remittances, and ethnographic data drawn from research among Cuban migrants in Cuba and Spain. The reflexive scrutiny of scholars' moral assumptions about remittances opens the way for the study of the moral dilemmas and ethical demands articulated by remittance senders and recipients. Family roles and obligations, and the uses of the money sent by migrants, are identified as key areas of moral difficulty. Their analysis shows how remittances inform moral reassessments of family relations, individual responsibility, economic practice, and development. The notion of 'moral remittances' is proposed as a heuristic comparative tool that serves to illuminate the moral aspects of remittances. This notion is put into perspective to complement and reconsider more metaphorical takes on remittances, notably the concept of 'social remittances', of which it helps reveal some epistemological limitations while opening future research avenues.

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Based on ethnography of touristic encounters in Cuba, the article reflects on competing approaches to difference, inequality, and intimacy in tourism and in anthropology. Comparing the understandings of tourists and Cubans involved in these informal engagements, of the Cuban authorities, and of scholars and commentators, three idealized scenarios and modes of interpretation are teased out. Rather than assessing their degree of accuracy or suggesting the primacy of one over the other, the article reflects on their co-presence and competing rationales, focusing on the conditions of their emergence and assessing their epistemological, moral, and political implications. In so doing, it foregrounds how the expectations, desires, and moral underpinnings that inform our findings and interpretative horizons resonate with those of the people we study, opening up different possibilities for estrangement and familiarization, and highlighting what is at stake in these processes both for anthropology and for those with whom we work.