| This research analyzes the interrelationship of transnational and global processes on community identity and gender in Santa Maria Atzompa, Oaxaca, Mexico. I focus on how negotiations of gender are influenced, and at times governed by, the social practices and physical space of community, and how this in turn affects the politics of women's involvement in economic, social, religious, and political spaces. Through life histories, case studies, personal participation, and interviews, I document how women negotiate new roles for themselves and their families within existing social and ideological parameters. I analyze how women manipulate the commodification of their "indigenous" artisan identity by the state for tourism, both in terms of their body and their community, while at the same time developing alternative strategies that allow for new forms of identity that are progressive and self-sustainable. For example, many successful women artisans balance their indigenous identity associated with their pottery production with alternate forms of autonomy acquired through advanced education, professional employment, wage labor, and entrepreneurship. I approach the research from the perspective of the lived experiences of the people of the community, replete with all of the tensions, contradictions, and confusions that occur as a result of the changes taking place around them. I argue that a collapsing of boundaries, both physically and conceptually, between Atzompa and the rest of the world, profoundly affects the way Atzompenos perceive themselves and their alternatives. There is an overt and conscious attempt by the members of the community to remain little affected by the imposing forces of transculturation resulting from their proximity to Oaxaca City, their tourist-based economy, and their historical relationship to the nation-state. Rural and peripheral communities, such as Atzompa, that rely on daily economic, political, and social interactions with urban centers, global markets, tourism, and other such dominating forces, must constantly defend their identities as separate entities. Compromise in the form of re-invention utilizing selected images, processes, and practices, occurs constantly. My analysis shows how the conflicts and contestations in defining Atzompa's identity are mirrored in the construction of the identities of its social groups, neighborhoods, households, and individuals. |
