Gender and the Boundaries of Dress in Contemporary PeruSet in Arequipa during Peru's recent years of crisis, this ethnography reveals how dress creates gendered bodies. It explores why people wear clothes, why people make art, and why those things matter in a war-torn land. Blenda Femenías argues that women's clothes are key symbols of gender identity and resistance to racism. Moving between metropolitan Arequipa and rural Caylloma Province, the central characters are the Quechua- and Spanish-speaking maize farmers and alpaca herders of the Colca Valley. Their identification as Indians, whites, and mestizos emerges through locally produced garments called bordados. Because the artists who create these beautiful objects are also producers who carve an economic foothold, family workshops are vital in a nation where jobs are as scarce as peace. But ambiguity permeates all practices shaping bordados' significance. Femenías traces contemporary political and ritual applications, not only Caylloma's long-standing and violent ethnic conflicts, to the historical importance of cloth since Inca times. This is the only book about expressive culture in an Andean nation that centers on gender. In this feminist contribution to ethnography, based on twenty years' experience with Peru, including two years of intensive fieldwork, Femenías reflects on the ways gender shapes relationships among subjects, research, and representation. |
From inside the book
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... designs in the main bands , in addition to four or five simpler designs used for fillers , edgings , and borders . A star , the large , unifying fea- ture on the crown of a hat ( see Figures 16 and 17 ) , also appears in bands . Motifs ...
... designs on the garments are clearly related to other domains , including printed matter and architec- ture , but they do not replicate any sources . Even as designs and materials shift with trends , bordados as a whole continue ...
... designs , although the black corpiño had been destined for mourning wear ( luto ) . It took several weeks to complete , but the fin- ished product satisfied everyone . Alongside the central band of figures were framing bands using ...
Contents
Introduction False Borders Embroidered Lives | xvii |
the Crossroads | 78 |
Process | 103 |
Copyright | |
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