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Pink Gold

Women, Shrimp, and Work in Mexico
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2023

About this book


A rich, long-term ethnography of women seafood traders in Mexico.

The "shrimp ladies," locally known as changueras in southern Sinaloa, Mexico, sell seafood in open-air markets, forming an extralegal but key part of the economy built around this "pink gold.” Over time, they struggled to evolve from marginalized peddlers to local icons depicted in popular culture, even as they continue to work at an open-air street market.

Pink Gold documents the shrimp traders' resilience and resourcefulness, from their early conflicts with the city, state, and federal authorities and forming a union, to carving out a physical space for a seafood market, and even engaging in conflicts with the Mexican military. Drawing from her two decades of fieldwork, María L. Cruz-Torres explores the inspiring narrative of this overlooked group of women involving grassroots politics, trans-border and familial networking, debt and informal economic practices, personal sacrifices, and simple courage. She argues that, amid intense economic competition, their success relies on group solidarity that creates interlocking networks of mutual trust, or confianza, that in turn enable them to cross social and political boundaries that would typically be closed to them. Ultimately, Pink Gold offers fresh insights into issues of gender and labor, urban public space, the street economy, commodities, and globalization.

Author / Editor information

María L. Cruz-Torres is an anthropologist and associate professor at Arizona State University's School of Transborder Studies. She is a coeditor of Gender and Sustainability: Lessons from Asia and Latin America and the author of Lives of Dust and Water: An Anthropology of Change and Resistance in Northwestern Mexico.

Reviews

In this beautifully written ethnography based on years of research, Cruz-Torres vividly portrays the agency of changueras, women shrimp vendors who created a niche within a male-dominated world and helped shape Mazatlán as a key node in the globalized seafood market. Pink Gold makes original interventions to multiple scholarly fields and illuminates these women’s informal labor as well as their historic collective advocacy.
— Patricia Zavella, University of California, Santa Cruz, author of The Movement for Reproductive Justice: Empowering Women of Color through Social Activism

Through meticulous fieldwork and a robust theoretical basis in feminist political ecology, Cruz-Torres tells the story of the changueras, women shrimp vendors of Mazatlán, capturing the rich specificities of their lives and demonstrating the relevance of her case study to other similar work. She expands political ecology beyond the study of production, and helps us see the ways in which women contribute to fishing economies, even when they are not the fishers. Her strong relationships with and respect and admiration for her interlocutors are apparent on every page. Pink Gold is an outstanding book, notable for its intricate details, in-depth analysis, and warmth of spirit.
— Elizabeth Ferry, Department of Anthropology at Brandeis University, author of Not Ours Alone: Patrimony, Value and Collectivity in Contemporary Mexico

The pinnacle of social-cultural anthropology is understanding and expressing people’s lives, moving through time and set in wider contexts. Pink Gold excels in this challenging task. Women’s stories unfold from their childhoods through their full formation as seafood traders in the political ecology of coastal Mexico. Vivid, readable, touching, and memorable, this book is an outstanding ethnography.
— Josiah Heyman, University of Texas at El Paso, co-editor of The U.S.-Mexico Transborder Region: Cultural Dynamics and Historical Interactions

Pink Gold is a splendid narrative about how a Mexican underclass, the subaltern Changueras of Mazatlán, forged a union and created a market based on a local commodity, local social processes, and public space. Pink Gold refers to the commodity 'shrimp,' but it also embodies the women changueras (shrimp vendors) who persevered despite global and neoliberal processes impinging on their livelihoods. . . . Perhaps the most enduring aspect of Pink Gold is the heart underlying the social science, as evident in the descriptive elegance in tales of these women. Pink Gold is full of corazón and care. It is a tribute to the changueras, but also the work of María L. Cruz-Torres.
— American Anthropologist

Through a close understanding of the lives of these women, Cruz-Torres addresses interconnections between gender and labour as well as the politics of resistance and survival in an industry traditionally understood as male-dominated....provides a valuable account of women’s participation in informal economies in the Global South....This work [is] both original and ground-breaking.
— Latin American Review of Books

By situating her study at the crossroads of feminist political economy and multisited ethnography, Cruz-Torres uncovers lives that too often remain in the shadows...This engrossing read, written in accessible prose, will appeal to a wide variety of [readers].
— Conservation and Society

Cruz-Torres adds nuance to the scholarship on feminist political ecology by emphasizing how class and culture shape women’s struggles; she contributes to the scholarship on the social relations of commodities in which marketing shifts from men’s to women’s work as products enter global markets...In this beautifully written ethnography, we see the ethnographer working ethically alongside her interlocutors, to whom she promised this book.
— Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

It is likely that I will never pass a female street vendor again, in Latin America or elsewhere, without thinking of María Cruz-Torres’ insightful and beautifully written monograph...[which is] a fine-grained, intersectional analysis of the interplay between gender and class in Mexican and Latin American household organizations, social relations, public spheres, and street level economies.
— Economic Anthropology

This book is a valuable resource.
— Political Ecology

For scholars and students of Mexico, as well as anyone interested in food production and supply chains, informal economies, or gendered labor relations, this is a must-read ethnography.
— Exertions: Web Publication for Society for the Anthropology of Work

Cruz-Torres’s ethnographic skill is exceptional. Her superb reporting style...[is matched by] her critical theoretical expertise...[She is a] gifted anthropologist.
— Journal of Anthropological Research

Pink Gold is a remarkable ethnographic work...Cruz-Torres's study contributes to the literature on feminist political ecology, gender and commodity supply chains, and women and work in Mazatlán and Mexico more broadly.
— Bulletin of Latin American Research

[This] compelling ethnography...is a masterclass in blending detailed fieldwork with rich theoretical analysis, providing a...detailed account of how gender, culture, and economics intersect in the world of shrimp trading.

— Journal of Political Ecology

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    ix
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    Preface

    xi
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    Acknowledgments

    xvii
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    INTRODUCTION Amber Sunsets and Pink Gold

    1
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    CHAPTER 1 Contested Grounds: Women Shrimp Traders and Street Economies

    41
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    CHAPTER 2 On Becoming Changueras: Gendered Livelihoods and Contested Identities

    80
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    CHAPTER 3 The Street of the Women Shrimp Traders: Learning the Tricks of the Trade in Space and Place

    108
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    CHAPTER 4 Here We Are Like a Family: The Complexity of Social Relations

    147
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    CHAPTER 5 The Culture and Economy of Pink Gold: The Meanings, Processes, and Values of Shrimp

    185
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    CHAPTER 6 Sometimes We Work Just to Pay Our Debts: Informal Credit and Savings Systems

    222
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    CHAPTER 7 From Outcasts to Icons: Women Shrimp Traders and Expressive Culture

    260
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    CONCLUSION Feminist Political Ecology, Ethnography, and Uncovering Lived Realities

    291
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    Notes

    305
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    References

    313
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    Index

    329
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 19, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9781477328033
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.7560/328019
eBook ISBN: 9781477328033
Keywords for this book
shrimp; changueras; confianza; gender and labor; shrimp women; anthropology of food; Mazatlán; Sinaloa; seafood trade; political ecology; labor and commodities; food studies; women's studies; gender studies; ethnography; markets in Mexico; mercados; mercado
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
Downloaded on 5.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7560/328019/html
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