Manchester University Press
3 The interstices of history
-
Abstract
The chapter offers a historical reconstruction of the relationship between gender, identities, and human mobility in the territories of the Andean Tri-border, focusing on the outskirts of Arica (Chile), where our ethnography was carried out. Based on a review of the previous literature, the chapter analyses historical elements to interpret the current experiences of Bolivian Indigenous women in these areas. It will start by characterizing some of the identity tensions of the territory in the Tiwanaku and Inca Empires. It also discusses how the colonial order (from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries) intensified patriarchal inequalities, increased gender violence, and imposed symbolisms and moralities that made native women inferior. Finally, the formation of nation-states (in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) is addressed, exploring how the wars that forged the borders between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia reinvented long-lasting identity conflicts. This war process further intensified patriarchal asymmetries, naturalizing the notion that border control enables the exercise of violence against women (especially if they are Indigenous).
Abstract
The chapter offers a historical reconstruction of the relationship between gender, identities, and human mobility in the territories of the Andean Tri-border, focusing on the outskirts of Arica (Chile), where our ethnography was carried out. Based on a review of the previous literature, the chapter analyses historical elements to interpret the current experiences of Bolivian Indigenous women in these areas. It will start by characterizing some of the identity tensions of the territory in the Tiwanaku and Inca Empires. It also discusses how the colonial order (from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries) intensified patriarchal inequalities, increased gender violence, and imposed symbolisms and moralities that made native women inferior. Finally, the formation of nation-states (in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) is addressed, exploring how the wars that forged the borders between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia reinvented long-lasting identity conflicts. This war process further intensified patriarchal asymmetries, naturalizing the notion that border control enables the exercise of violence against women (especially if they are Indigenous).
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of tables viii
- Contributors ix
- Acknowledgments xiii
- Map xv
- I The volume and its theoretical approaches 1
- Introduction 3
- 1 The elemental triad 28
- 2 (Re)thinking complementarity 59
- II The Chilean and Bolivian sides of the Andean Tri-border 79
- 3 The interstices of history 81
- 4 The context through images 104
- 5 Gendered mobility 135
- III Migratory insertion and transborder violence 159
- 6 Care across gender boundaries 161
- 7 On gifts and multiple presence 188
- 8 Borderization is gendered 211
- 9 The hidden sites of violence 234
- Epilogue 257
- Index 263
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of tables viii
- Contributors ix
- Acknowledgments xiii
- Map xv
- I The volume and its theoretical approaches 1
- Introduction 3
- 1 The elemental triad 28
- 2 (Re)thinking complementarity 59
- II The Chilean and Bolivian sides of the Andean Tri-border 79
- 3 The interstices of history 81
- 4 The context through images 104
- 5 Gendered mobility 135
- III Migratory insertion and transborder violence 159
- 6 Care across gender boundaries 161
- 7 On gifts and multiple presence 188
- 8 Borderization is gendered 211
- 9 The hidden sites of violence 234
- Epilogue 257
- Index 263
