Female Bodies and Globalization: The Work of Indigenous Women Weavers in Zinacantán

• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20952082
• Author: Eugenia Bayona Escat
• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Date: 01 November 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

36

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20952082

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 235, Vol. 47 No. 6, November 2020, 36–55

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20952082

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

Female Bodies and Globalization

The Work of Indigenous Women Weavers in Zinacantán

by

Eugenia Bayona Escat

Women producers and sellers of textile crafts in Zinacantán, Chiapas, Mexico, use one

of the few resources they have to enter business: craft production as informal, invisible,

and underpaid work. Taking the body as the axis of analysis, three distinct areas of trans-

formation of indigenous women producers by tourism may be identified: the private and

domestic body of craftswomen, the social and public body as an icon of ethnic difference,

and the commodified body as an extension of the touristic object. The analysis shows that

tourism and participation in the international market strengthen gender, class, and ethnic

differences and contribute to the perpetuation of existing inequalities.

Las productoras y vendedoras de artesanía textil en Zinacantán, Chiapas, México,

utilizan uno de los pocos recursos que tienen participar en el mercado: la producción arte-

sanal como trabajo informal, invisible y mal remunerado. Tomando el cuerpo como eje de

análisis, identificamos tres áreas distintas de transformación ejercidas por el turismo sobre

las productoras indígenas: el cuerpo privado y doméstico de las artesanas, el organismo

social y público como icono de la diferencia étnica, y el organismo mercantilizado como

una extensión del objeto turístico. El análisis muestra que el turismo y la participación en

el mercado internacional fortalecen las diferencias de género, clase y etnia y contribuyen

a la perpetuación de las desigualdades existentes.

Keywords: Gender, Indigenous body, Ethnic tourism, Textiles, Commodities

Since the 1990s, the indigenous municipality of Zinacantán in the highlands

of Chiapas has been incorporated into an international tourist circuit promoted

by public institutions and tourism agencies. During the summer and the Easter

and Christmas seasons, tourist buses arrive daily to tour the town center and

visit the church, the main square, and some craft shops. The population of the

rural areas makes a living from agricultural production and consumption

under conditions of marginality and poverty. Nevertheless, Zinacanteco

women have entered into the global dynamic of production and sale of textiles;

some have formed associations and cooperatives to get access to institutional

Eugenia Bayona Escat has been an interim assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and

Social Anthropology at the University of Valencia. Her current research focuses on ethnic tourism

and cultural consumption in the Tzeltal-Tzotzil region of the highlands of Chiapas, particularly

the production, distribution, and consumption of ethnic goods and the relationship between gen-

der, ethnic identity, and tourism. This study is part of the R & D project “Turismo étnico y rituales

new age en Los Altos de Chiapas, México” of the Generalitat Valenciana (GV2015/038), 2014–

2016. An earlier version was presented at the Thirty-fifth International Congress of the Latin

American Studies Association held in Lima, Peru, April 29–May 1, 2017.

952082LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20952082Latin American PerspectivesBayona / Female Bodies and Globalization In Zinacantán

research-article2020

Bayona / FEMALE BODIES AND GLOBALIZATION IN ZINACANTÁN 37

resources, while others make clothing to sell in the region’s markets. The most

fortunate have opened their doors for tourists to observe the process of waist-

loom weaving and have turned their houses into shops with many types of

textiles for sale. Craft production has gone beyond local spaces and is sold in

the shops and markets of the city, through the Internet, and in museums and

fairs.

Cultural and ethnic tourism has become the main source of income in the

Chiapas highlands, and the region has become established as an attractive des-

tination for international visitors. Tourism promotion is based on showing

indigenous communities as if they were little historical tableaux of an ancient

Mayan past (Van den Berghe, 1994; 1995). In particular, the waist-loom weaving

that is used to make textiles is considered a pre-Hispanic practice. However, the

reality of this production is much more complex and varied than it may seem

at first sight; women have gone from making everyday clothing for their fami-

lies to the wholesale production of textiles with high exchange values and

demand in the international market (J. C. Nash, 1993; Stephen, 1993). In some

ways, they produce and sell objects related both to their own bodies and to an

ethnic identity associated with the clothes they wear. These ethnic objects may

be considered an extension of indigenous female corporeality that has become

a global commodity decontextualized in time and space.

Tourism is one of the most important work sectors for indigenous women,

who are entering previously inaccessible public spaces but still restricted by

gender, social class, and ethnicity. Ferguson (2010) says that employment in the

tourism sector is structured by gender differences within a global political

economy that favors a workforce occupying precarious, low-level, and low-

paying jobs.Indigenous women perform female tasks such as selling to the

public, cooking, cleaning, and handling lodging, thus assuming female roles

for tourism and accepting temporary, poorly paid jobs with long work hours.

While some women work invisibly in hotels and restaurants, hiding their

indigenous origin, others market their indigenous identity to attract more tour-

ists. This is the case for souvenir producers and sellers who bargain over prices

with tourists and work with few benefits in an informal economy embedded in

the tourist market; they work on their own, in their homes or on the streets, in

activities not regulated by the state and lacking accounting of their wages or

hours.

The Mexican state has played an important role in the commercialization of

the indigenous population. Its political strategy has been to promote tourist

activity as an initiative for economic development by converting archaeologi-

cal, natural, and cultural resources into objects for tourist consumption.

Cultural and ethnic tourism was not, however, a major part of the agenda in the

early days of state planning. Instead, investment was made in the development

of a number of coastal poles to attract “sun and beach” tourists. At the end of

the 1960s, so-called integrally planned tourist centers such as Cancún (in 1970),

Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo (in 1972), Los Cabos (in 1974), Loreto (in 1975), and Bahías

de Huatulco (in 1984) were added to those created during the presidency of

Miguel Alemán (1946–1952) such as Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, and

Manzanillo. During the administration of Luis Echeverría Álvarez (1970–1976),

the National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism was established for the