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. |
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... artistic production and handwork were conspicuously central. When I talked about “crafts” or knitted, people showed me textiles old and new. Cherished, woven heirlooms from Caylloma helped them feel at home in the city. Bordados had ...
... artists who create them. They hold embroidered lives.8 By 1991, when I went to live in Peru, I had already visited several times. Although life during wartime would be hard, the everyday dangers of urban life should come as no surprise ...
... artists, workshop heads, and workers. Women tend to underplay or deny these roles, sometimes saying they do not work ... artistic aspiration and achievement. Here, too, exceptions to gendered norms matter. Female leaders in the bordados ...
... artistic creativity and commercial production. Recall that Leonardo Mejia said, “When I see a woman in polleras, I always call out a greeting. She is from my place.” But she is also wearing his clothes—the clothes he made. Bordados are ...
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Contents
Traveling | |
Identity in a Region at | |
Visual Domain and Cultural Process | |
Representation and the Embodiment | |
Transvestism and Festivals as Performance | |
Ethnic Symbols and Gendered | |
Gender and Production in a Workshop | |
Exchange Identity and the Commoditization | |
Conclusion Why Women Wear Polleras | |
Bibliography | |
Index | |