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
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... marriage (madrina de matrimonio, sp.) to ask for advice.1 her godmother, who lived in the town of Pocoata, encouraged her to see the judge. The judge told ilena that other people should not be gossiping about her: “They should not be ...
... marriage. The series of events also indicates a woman's active attempts to contest public opinion. in claiming to be envied and to be harmed by that envy, ilena endeavors to maintain a par- ticular kind of relationship with her husband ...
... marry and have children to be considered adults. As in other societies, the so- cial, economic, and political centrality of marriage reinforces a compulsory heterosexuality (rubin 1975). scholars of the Andean region have explored the ...
... married couple is viewed as a unit, referred to as qusawarmi (husband-wife), marriage also embeds sullk'atas in a broad network of relation- ships. married couples traditionally live together in the household of the hus- band's parents ...
... marriage, and operate a clinic in the region. The neoliberal reforms of the late twentieth century, including the closing of mines in the highlands and the privatization of national industries, as well as the increase in the coca and ...
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 |