Author: johnsonl2

Theme: Identity and the intersections of women and ethnicity

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The article “‘Women Are More Indian’”: Ethnicity and Gender in a Community near Cuzco” by Marisol de la Cadena “explores the ways in which gender and ethnic relations have developed and intersected over time in Chitapampa…” [1] A key theme in both texts is that seemingly separate categories of ethnicity, class, masculine, and feminine should not be studied independently, but rather as interconnected elements of identity that are relational to each other. In this text, the author focuses on the distribution of valued labor between urban and rural settings to suggest that women are perceived as more “Indian” because of the ethnic associations with the labor their gender role restricts them to.
The article introduces the idea of valued work being divided along gender lines when discussing how work was divided in an agricultural society. Men were perceived as being more suited to harder physical labor, such as plowing, so “…for Chitapampinos, men’s capacity to work is greater than that of women…” [2] Women’s work, which involved tending to the house or selling the harvests, was seen as less physically strenuous, and therefore was valued less. Therefore, in a rural society, farming (valued more) was associated with men and the author defines this a key source of gender inequality.
However, the author recognizes that there is a historical and ethnic component to this relationship between genders. As rural indigenous workers began to move into the cities, the perception of valued labor shifted to “Urban work is valued more highly than rural work.” [3] This meant that working in the cities was considered more valuable and the author claims that this was divided along gendered lines as well. Men had more opportunity to find work and be based in the cities while women continued to be confined to the home. Therefore, men worked in urban settings and women worked in rural settings (where the home was located). Even though women began to fulfill an agricultural role that was once valued highly and restricted to men, the goal post had shifted, and urban work became what was valued. However, there is an ethnic component to this value system as well. The author writes, “…urban work serves to distinguish mestizos from Indians: ‘Indians don’t know how to work as well as mestizos do…’” [4] Urban work characterized mestizos and rural work characterized what was considered “Indian.” Since urban and rural is also divided along gender lines, the author argues that men are more associated with being mestizo and women are more associated with being Indian. Therefore, ethnicity, labor value, and gender influence each other to create identity and cultural perceptions of identity.
Footnotes
[1] De la Cadena. “Are Women More Indian?” in Larson, Brooke, Olivia Harris, and Enrique Tandeter, eds. Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995, (329).
[2] De la Cadena. “Are Women More Indian?” (333).
[3] De la Cadena. “Are Women More Indian?” (334).
[4] De la Cadena. “Are Women More Indian?” (334).
Sources Used:
De la Cadena. “Are Women More Indian?” in Larson, Brooke, Olivia Harris, and Enrique Tandeter, eds. Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.

History of Assimilation in Bolvia and Columbia

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Key Term: Assimilation
Definition: The absorption of the culture and practices of one group of people into the culture and practices of a dominant group with the aim of marginalizing the first group.
Significance: The term assimilation is key to the topic of indigenous rights because of the way in which is has underlined state-community relations for the past few centuries. Hybrids of colonial and pre-colonial power structures were still in place but the new liberal governments in Columbia and Bolivia wanted to get rid of these colonial practices post-independence. One of the manifestations of this change in ideology was several neo-liberal reforms in both countries which targeted at creating a nation and assimilating the indigenous population into the dominant culture. Understanding the history and consequences of these assimilationist policies enacted by the Bolivian and Columbian governments towards the indigenous people informs as to why assimilation is not the answer to current indigenous demands and how the indigenous identity is under threat. The books Revolutionary Horizons and Politics of Memory demonstrate the ways in which on political and economic levels, the indigenous population shifted to being termed as “peasants” and the government attempted to assimilate them into the dominant culture. In Revolutionary Horizons, Hylton and Thomson write, “Bolivian liberalism in the nineteenth century has been described as ethnocidal since it aimed to turn ‘Indians’ into ‘Bolivians,’ without granting them the rights and status of ‘citizens.’” [1] Political movements to incorporate indigenous communities into the nation were seen as progressive in contrast to the colonial system of two separate republics. However, Hylton and Thomson note how for the indigenous people, equality and citizenship were still out of reach. They write, “The document noted the gains of the national revolution as well as its limits – among other points, Aymara-Quechua peasants were ‘foreigners’ in their own country due to the culturally homogenizing policies of the MNR and the military.” [2] By terming the policies of the government at this time as “culturally homogenizing,” Hylton and Thomson convey the extent to which political movements at the time aimed to take the cultural diversity in Bolivia and weld the people into one people who followed one Bolivian culture. The consequences of this were that indigenous people continued to feel excluded from the nation because they didn’t want to sacrifice their indigenous identity. Hylton and Thomson describe this as the concept of mestizaje which, “implied a distillation of Bolivia’s distinct Spanish and Indian racial and civilizational essences into a blended national unity.” [3] While the term national unity and everyone being made citizen seemed progressive and beneficial to everyone, the failure to recognize the separate indigenous identity and history meant that many of the policies in actuality were assimilationist and contributed to the erasure of the indigenous identity. I think that the term assimilation and its history is very important to include in our syllabus so that anyone reading can have a good understanding of how governments have treated indigenous communities in the past and how the consequences of those actions are shaping present day indigenous movements.
[1] Hylton, Forrest, and Sinclair Thomson. Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics (London: Verso, 2007), 47.
[2] Hylton, Forrest, and Sinclair Thomson. Revolutionary Horizons, 87.
[3] Hylton, Forrest, and Sinclair Thomson. Revolutionary Horizons, 80.
Sources Used:
Hylton, Forrest, and Sinclair Thomson. Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics. London: Verso, 2007.
Rappaport, Joanne. The Politics of Memory: Native Historical Interpretation in the Colombian Andes. Duke University Press, 1998.