Since 1995 she has spent time living and researching in Cuba and participating in solidarity campaigns. Her doctoral research examined the least known aspect of one of the 20th century’s best-known icons: the economic work of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara as a member of the Cuban government and his contribution to socialist political economy debates. Her books on Cuba have become set texts in Cuba studies and her articles been published in a broad range of media outside of academia, including Jacobin, Le Monde Diplomatique, The Guardian, The Conversation and Counterpunch. Yaffe frequently provides commentary to the mainstream media on developments in Cuba and Cuba-US relations.
Her most recent book, We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World (Yale University Press, 2020) was praised for its ‘insightful analysis’ by Professor William Leogrande and for being ‘written with clarity and flair’ by Ricardo Alarcon former President of the Cuban National Assembly. Her first book Che Guevara: the Economics of Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) was described as a ‘brilliant book’ by Richard Gott in The Guardian and ‘exciting, well written and well-documented’ by Claes Brundenius in the Journal of Latin American Studies, who added: ‘What is unique about Yaffe's book is her impressive use of new, until now unexplored, Cuban sources.’ Yaffe is also co-author with Professor Gavin Brown of the book Youth Activism and Solidarity: the Non-Stop Picket against Apartheid (2017), about the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group’s non-stop demonstration which lasted nearly four years outside the South African embassy in London to demand the release of political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela.
She has co-produced two documentaries: Cuba & Covid-19: Public Health, Science and Solidarity (2020) and Cuba’s Life Task: Combatting Climate Change (2021), which premiered in Glasgow in November during COP26, the international climate change conference in that city. The screening was addressed by Cuba’s Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment, Elba Rosa Montoya, who attended with the rest of the Cuban delegation to COP26.