Performing Kinship: Narrative, Gender, and the Intimacies of Power in the AndesIn the highland region of Sullk'ata, located in the rural Bolivian Andes, habitual activities such as sharing food, work, and stories create a sense of relatedness among people. Through these day-to-day interactions—as well as more unusual events—individuals negotiate the affective bonds and hierarchies of their relationships. In Performing Kinship, Krista E. Van Vleet reveals the ways in which relatedness is evoked, performed, and recast among the women of Sullk'ata. Portraying relationships of camaraderie and conflict, Van Vleet argues that narrative illuminates power relationships, which structure differences among women as well as between women and men. She also contends that in the Andes gender cannot be understood without attention to kinship. Stories such as that of the young woman who migrates to the city to do domestic work and later returns to the highlands voicing a deep ambivalence about the traditional authority of her in-laws provide enlightening examples of the ways in which storytelling enables residents of Sullk'ata to make sense of events and link themselves to one another in a variety of relationships. A vibrant ethnography, Performing Kinship offers a rare glimpse into an compelling world. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 78
... household for over a year and had become close to her and her family. “ilena's husband hit her,” Claudina informed me. “ilena has gone to see a judge in Pocoata to ask that someone be arrested.” Although i had heard of violent inci ...
... household. Although envy is understood by sullk'atas to cause physical and metaphysical damage to the envied person, the harm cannot be easily tracked back to any particular individual. i did not have long to contemplate ilena's ...
... household of the hus- band's parents for the initial two to five years of marriage. A daughter-in-law often works for her mother-in-law long after she has a household and family of her own to maintain. once married, both men and women ...
... households and communities that can no longer be viewed as isolated from global processes and transnational discourses. i focus in particular on the embodied, linguis- tic and social activity of telling stories. As human beings, we ...
... households and communities. everyday life in sullk'ata is also permeated with efforts to maintain relation- ships of reciprocity between human and supernatural beings. sullk'atas con- stantly remember the forces of the land through ...
Contents
1 | |
27 | |
Circulation of Care A Primer on Sullkata Relatedness | 55 |
Narrating Sorrow Performing Relatedness A Story Told in Conversation | 79 |
Storied Silences Adolescent Desires Gendered Agency and the Practice of Stealing Women | 99 |
Reframing the Married Couple Affect and Exchange in Three Parts | 129 |
Now My Daughter Is Alone Violence and the Ambiguities of Affinity | 161 |
Conclusion Reflections on the Dialogical Production of Relatedness | 183 |
Chapter 5 Narrative Transcriptions in Quechua and in English | 197 |
Chapter 6 Interview Transcriptions in Quechua | 205 |
Notes | 209 |
Glossary | 225 |
Bibliography | 229 |
Index | 257 |