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University of California Press

About the Book

In Women’s Place in the Andes Florence E. Babb draws on four decades of anthropological research to reexamine the complex interworkings of gender, race, and indigeneity in Peru and beyond.  She deftly interweaves five new analytical chapters with six of her previously published works that exemplify currents in feminist anthropology and activism. Babb argues that decolonizing feminism and engaging more fully with interlocutors from the South will lead to a deeper understanding of the iconic Andean women who are subjects of both national pride and everyday scorn. This book’s novel approach goes on to set forth a collaborative methodology for rethinking gender and race in the Americas.

About the Author

Florence E. Babb is the Anthony Harrington Distinguished Professor in Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of The Tourism Encounter: Fashioning Latin American Nations and Histories.

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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Foreword xvii

Introduction: Rethinking Gender, Race, and Indigeneity in Andean Peru 1
PART I. GENDER AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE VICOS PROJECT 33
Commentary 35
1. Women and Men in Vicos, Peru: A Case of Unequal Development 55
PART II. GENDER AND THE URBAN INFORMAL ECONOMY 87
Commentary 89
2. Women in the Marketplace: Petty Commerce in Peru 107
3. Producers and Reproducers: Andean Market
Women in the Economy 123
4. Market/Places as Gendered Spaces: Market/Women’s Studies over Two Decades 133
PART III. GENDERED POLITICS OF WORK, TOURISM, AND CULTURAL IDENTITY 143
Commentary 145
5. Women’s Work: Engendering Economic Anthropology 165
6. Theorizing Gender, Race, and Cultural Tourism in Latin America: A View from Peru and Mexico 183
Conclusion: Toward a Decolonial Feminist Anthropology 200

Notes 223
References 239
Index 265

Reviews

"Florence Babb’s Women’s Place in the Andes: Engaging Decolonial Feminist Anthropology is a refreshing and unique collection that puts Babb’s writings since the 1970s into dialogue with her more recent work and with contemporary feminist theory broadly. ... the book ultimately illustrates in a complex, multi-scalar way one of the most important talents of the successful anthropologist, in any part of the world: that of listening."
Journal of International Women's Studies
"The book offers important insights by providing a meta-reflection about conceptual, epistemological, and methodological tendencies and shifts. It will be a valuable source of inspiration and debate for experienced scholars and activists as well as novices for decades to come."
Anthropos
"[Babb's] book makes clear why the study of gender matters both as a discreet field of interest and a critical component of any modern social science research."
The Latin Americanist
"I know of no other similar book. It is engaging, accessible, critically insightful, and from beginning to end, touches on multiple key research areas of great interest to interdisciplinary feminist scholars, anthropologists, and Latin Americanists. It was a pleasure to read." —M. Cristina Alcalde, author of Peruvian Lives across Borders: Power, Exclusion, and Home 

"What is of particular interest is Florence Babb’s engagement with feminist debates from almost the earliest years of what can be described as a feminist anthropology right through to current debates about decolonial feminism. The scholarship presented here has a unique perspective. I don’t think there is anyone else who has been as involved politically and academically in feminist debates in the Andes from an anthropological perspective and who can write so authoritatively about them."—Andrew Canessa author of Intimate Indigeneities: Race, Sex and History in the Small Spaces of Andean Life

"From an honest and self-critical perspective, Florence Babb shares her epistemological and political searches throughout forty years of scholarly work and construction of alliances with Peruvian women. A fundamental contribution to the decolonialization of feminist anthropology in the Andean region."—R. Aída Hernández Castillo, author of Multiple InJustices: Indigenous Women, Law, and Political Struggle 

"In this invaluable contribution to feminist anthropology and Latin American studies, Florence Babb skillfully weaves together new writings in decolonial thinking with her own foundational work in gender analysis and economic anthropology in the Andes. The benefits go both ways: Babb shows how feminist ethnography, with its long, deep, personal and highly ethical relationships with marginalized, non-white and non-gender-conforming individuals, can bring to life the theoretical concerns of decolonial Latin American philosophers; and at the same time, she updates the long tradition of feminist ethnography by bringing it into conversation with newer theoretical and political trends. The links she makes between decoloniality and political economy are especially welcome in the current moment, as she shows us a feminist path towards linking concerns about precarity, gender, and race."—Mary Weismantel, author of Cholas and Pishtacos: Tales of Sex and Race in the Andes

Awards

  • Association for Feminist Anthropology Senior Book Prize Honorable Mention 2020 2020, Association for Feminist Anthropology