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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... mother . Elderly couples sorrow for children who have migrated to cities and are " no longer Sullk'atas . " People gossip about brothers whose envy for each other causes harm to befall them . Married adults — men and women — tell ...
... mothers-in- law, and daughters-in-law; as well as spouses), i had never seen any evidence of violence between ilena and marcelino. Concerned by Claudina's news, in ilena's absence i tried to find out more about what had happened. one ...
... mothers-in-law and sisters- in-law, as much as with their husbands. marriage produces both affective bonds and arenas of ... mother-in-law long after she has a household and family of her own to maintain. once married, both men and women ...
... mother) nurtures the plants, animals, and human beings. The potatoes growing within Pacha mama, and on individual plots of land that are sometimes called wirjines (little virgins) or mamitas (little mothers), sustain human beings. The ...
... mothers - in - law and recount stories of a “ more civilized ” life in the city in order to contest their own subordination to older women affines . Mothers - in - law sometimes resort to physical violence in an attempt to reinstate ...
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 |