Zapotec Women

Stephen Lynn Stephen

Description

In this extensively revised and updated second edition of her classic ethnography, Lynn Stephen explores the intersection of gender, class, and indigenous ethnicity in southern Mexico. She provides a detailed study of how the lives of women weavers and merchants in the Zapotec-speaking town of Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, have changed in response to the international demand for Oaxacan textiles. Based on Stephen's research in Teotitlan during the mid-1980s, in 1990, and between 2001 and 2004, this volume provides a unique view of a Zapotec community balancing a rapidly advancing future in export production with an entrenched past anchored in indigenous culture.Stephen presents new information about the weaving cooperatives women have formed over the last two decades in an attempt to gain political and cultural rights within their community and standing as independent artisans within the global market. She also addresses the place of Zapotec weaving within Mexican folk art and the significance of increased migration out of Teotitlan. The women weavers and merchants collaborated with Stephen on the research for this book, and their perspectives are key to her analysis of how gender relations have changed within rituals, weaving production and marketing, local politics, and family life. Drawing on the experiences of women in Teotitlan, Stephen considers the prospects for the political, economic, and cultural participation of other indigenous women in Mexico under the policies of economic neoliberalism which have prevailed since the 1990s.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• México
• Cultural studies
• Biological anthropology
• Mexico

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 17 octobre 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822387510
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Zapotec Women

         

Zapotec Women

Gender, Class, and Ethnicity

in Globalized Oaxaca

            

             

Duke University Press

Durham & London



©  Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of

America on acid-free paper 

Designed by CH Westmoreland

Typeset in Monotype Garamond by

Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-

Publication Data appear on the

last printed page of this book.

             

to the people of Teotitlán del Valle;

to my sons, Gabriel and José Angel;

and to my partner, Ellen Herman

Contents

List of Maps, Illustrations, and Tablesix Acknowledgmentsxiii Introduction       Ethnicity and Class in the Changing Lives of Zapotec Women        Kinship, Gender, and Economic Globalization        Six Women’s Stories:Julia, Cristina, Angela, Alicia, Imelda, and Isabel       Setting the Scene:The Zapotecs of Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca       Contested Histories:Women, Men, and the Relations of Production in Teotitlán, –s       Weaving as Heritage:Folk Art, Aesthetics, and the Commercialization of Zapotec Textiles       From Contract to Co-op:Gender, Commercialization, and Neoliberalism in Teotitlán

      Changes in the Civil-Religious Hierarchy and Their Impact on Women        Fiesta:The Gendered Dynamics of Ritual Participation        Challenging Political Culture:Women’s Changing Political Participation in Teotitlán

After Words:

On Speaking and Being Heard Notes Glossary of Spanish and Zapotec Terms Bibliography Index

Maps, Illustrations, and Tables

    . State of Oaxaca  . Teotitlán and surrounding communities            . Town center, the market, and a sixteenth-century church  . The textile market  . A farmer with oxen  . Arnulfo Mendoza, a weaver  . A subcontracted weaver  . A woman weaving  . A weaver preparing dyed yarn and a woman finishing the ends of a completed textile  . Aurora Contreras Lazo, the cofounder of the Gunah Ruinchi Laadti/ Women Who Weave cooperative  . The women of Teotitlán’s first cooperative in Oaxaca,   . Two women of the Gunah Shaguia/Women of Teotitlán cooperative  . Francisca Ruiz García with her cooperative, Dgunaa Gulal Ni Ruin Laadti/Traditional Women Weavers  . Four women of the second incarnation of Guna Ruinchi Laadti/ Women Who Weave  . Moisés Lazo, one of the founders of the Laadti Guede/Washed Blanket cooperative  . A mayordomo lights candles in the local church  . Food and candles are loaded into a truck for an engagement ceremony  . A woman makes tortillas for a fiesta  . A man engaged in ritual drinking  . The poorest type of housing in Teotitlán  . A newer two-story house  . Aurora Bazán López in her garden  . Josefina Jiménez and Lynn Stephen  . Pastora Gutiérrez Reyes, president of the local  committee       . Population of Teotitlán, –  . Percentage of full-time farmers, Teotitlán, –  . Hectares of corn planted and harvested in Teotitlán, –  . Irrigated versustemporalcorn yields for Teotitlán, – 