Mano de mujer, mano de hombre: Produccion artesanal textil en Comalapa, Guatemala.

摘要

Using an integrative economic and cultural approach, this dissertation focuses on textile artisan production in Comalapa, a Kaqchikel-Mayan community in highland Guatemala. Production as practice is conceptualized in a dialectical relationship with ideology. The total spectrum of weaving production in both backstrap and treadle looms is studied by means of a proposed typology of eight forms of artisan production. Based on criteria such as ownership of means of production, circulation of capital, functional division of labor, work site, family/wage composition of labor, textile technology, and gender division of labor, the typology comprises the following forms: household production for self consumption, household production for exchange, commissioned production, family workshop, family workshop with hired workers, putting-out-system, capitalist workshop, and manufactory. The ideological components examined encompass economic conceptualizations, ethnoaesthetics, and ethnic and gender identities expressed through weavings and the representation of weaving in popular paintings. The interaction between production and ideology is investigated in three domains: the local history of weaving, the daily organization of production in different cases of non-capitalist and capitalist production, and painting in three locally defined styles.; Supported by historical, economic, cultural and gender reasons, the distinction between backstrap-loom and treadle-loom weaving is fundamental to this research, which was carried out from June 1990 to December 1991. Methodology included participant observation, interviewing, case studies, a survey of 300 households and analysis of 400 paintings.; The local development of weaving in terms of technology, forms of production, marketing, and gender relationships is reconstructed. The persistence of backstrap-loom weaving despite the competition of treadle-loom weaving is explained. An emergent process of class and economic level differentiation is revealed through the comparative analysis of households engaged in non-capitalist and capitalist forms of production. The explanation of capitalist accumulation within the context of contending traditional and modern ideologies is examined. The polysemous meaning of weaving is presented in dialectical relation to the material basis of existence. The role of weaving in expressing ethnic (local, indigenous, pan-Mayan) and gender identities in paintings is analyzed as part of the confrontation between social life and its pictorial representation.