Table Of ContentPERUVIAN
STREET LIVES
Culture, Power, and Economy
among Market Women of Cuzco
Linda J. Seligmann
Peruvian Street Lives
◗ ◗ ◗ ◗ Interpretations of Culture in the New Millennium
Norman E. Whitten Jr., General Editor
Peruvian Street Lives
Culture, Power, and Economy among
Market Women of Cuzco
Linda J. Seligmann
University of Illinois Press·Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield
© 2004 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Unless otherwise noted, the photographs in this book were
taken by the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seligmann, Linda J., 1954–
Peruvian street lives: culture, power, and economy among
market women of Cuzco / Linda J. Seligmann.
p. cm. — (Interpretations of culture in the new
millennium)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-252-02901-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-252-07167-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Women—Peru—Cuzco—Social conditions. 2. Women—
Peru—Cuzco—Economic conditions. 3. Peddlers and ped-
dling—Peru—Cuzco. 4. Poor women—Peru—Cuzco.
5.Markets—Peru—Cuzco. 6. Women merchants—Peru—
Cuzco. I. Title. II. Series.
hq1575.c89s45 2004
305.42'0985'37—dc21 2003014290
This e-book edition is made possible with funding from the National Endowment
for the Humanities.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. Market Spaces and Market Places 19
2. Dried Goods, Soup, and Fried Eggs: Exchange Relations 42
3. Bitter Salt: Household Structures and Gender Ideologies 54
4. Straw Hats: The World of Wholesalers 71
5. Harpies and the Empty, Dirty, Overpriced Bread Basket:
Regulating the Market Chain 87
6. Sharks: Loan and Credit Arrangements 104
7. Talking Brew, Butchering Patience: Conversations in the
Marketplace 119
8. Race Recipes: Alliances and Animosity 148
9. Angels and Saints: Popular Religiosity 161
10. Two-Way Streets: Political Action 196
Conclusion: What’s in Store? 223
References Cited 229
Index 237
Acknowledgments
In an interview in The New Yorker with John Lahr, film director Mira Nair
commented that she follows the dictum of André Gide—Tyranny is the ab-
sence of complexity—in crafting her films about life in India. She added that
she keeps alert her “eye and ear for paradox.” I had just seen Monsoon Wed-
ding and, indeed, it was as Nair described it: “crammed with the contrasting
textures of sight, sound, and sociology” (Lahr 2002:100). This book repre-
sents a modest effort to bring alive the world that the women who work in
the markets of Cuzco inhabit, a world that moves from the daily doldrums of
making ends meet to unexpected dramas that unfold in households and on
the streets. It is a world in flux, yet it has its comforting rhythms. In the pages
that follow, I touch on the major domains through which these women’s life-
lines flow. Surely, there is more, and will be more, to the story, but I could
never have crafted this canvas of complexity without the help of the many
women, and some of the men, in Cuzco’s markets. For their interest in my
work, their patience in guiding me, their insights and humor, their tolerance
of my blunders, the flashes of anger that made me think twice, their willing-
ness to be associated with someone who didn’t exactly fit and sometimes af-
fected their ability to make sales, and the protection they offered me when the
markets became dangerous, I thank all of them, including those who looked
on curiously but fearfully as I interviewed their companions. They include Luz
Marina Pumalloqlla Huayllani, Eutrofia Qorihuaman, Lucila Chawar Ronda,
Susanna Farfán, Justina Aparicio de Paliza, Eulalia Gonzáles Castro, Sebastiana
Farfán Cinguna, Teodora Cárdenas Sierra, Doris Cerda López, Luisa Aguirre,
Pascuala Huamani, Magdalena Puma de Raymi, Juana Huaman, Serafina
Lorayku, Gregoria Quispe Yucra, Teófila Carpio, Jacinta López Quispe, Doris
Palma, Doris Amachi, Rosa Quispe, Baudelia Cataldo, Nanci Salazar, Doris
Argondoña Martínez, Eva Carhuarupay, Enriqueta Sana, María Cuba,
Martínez Suárez, Melchora Rayo, Margarita Juru, Wilma Hinajosa, Marina
viii acknowledgments
Ordoña, Marta Hernández, Hilda Villafuerte Toledo, Felícitas Lucrecia
Cardona Ríos, Alejandrina Wayka, Domérica Hermoza, Zoraida Sálazar,
Josefina Solorzano Cárdenas, Juana Calvo Córdova, Flora Pompiya, Leonarda
Rimachi, Julia Chacón, Ofelia Tingo Arias, Natalia Linares, Marina Condori,
Janet Aragón Olivos, Ruperta Gamarra, Claudia Futuri, Lucho Galdos, Vir-
ginia Lenes Tacuri, Alejo Gutierrez, Juan Roa Apasa, Aidé Tito Romero,
Victoria Quispe, María Inés Caballero Huachaca, Pablo Apasa, Santisa Juanca
Huayta, Bernice Alvarez, Liberata Condori, Jovita Arampa Puma, Elizabeth
Anchaya, Laura Carwarupay, Lucre Carwarupay, Aidé Garces, Amilcar Huarez,
Elizabeth Layqa, Agustín Mamani, Susanna Mora, Eutrofia Qorimaña, and
Elena Vega. This work would not have been possible without help from Teófila
Huaman Tito, my research assistant, who managed a fruit stall with her fa-
ther, mother, and sister. Teófila was old and wise before her time. She was funny
and smart, she had plenty of gumption, and I learned so much from her. She
kept me going when I became disheartened by closed doors, broken prom-
ises, and the difficulty of making sense of things. In 1991, Edgar Galdos
Enríquez, the son of a husband-wife team who sold clothes in the Tupac Amaru
market, also helped me conduct interviews in the market. Vicki Galiano Blanco
taught me a great deal as she energetically and meticulously assisted me in
making my way through the archives of regional newspapers and periodicals
in Cuzco, searching for information on the history of markets and marketing.
Cuzco is a departmental capital, but it is simultaneously a little village in
which people cluster and inhabit the same haunts from day to day. I taught a
class at the Colegio Andino of the Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos
“Bartolomé de Las Casas” on gender, class, and ethnicity in the Andes. My
students came from different parts of Latin America, Europe, and the United
States, and I benefited from my dialogs with them, especially Alexandra de
Mesones and Agustina Roca. Miguel Ayala and Silvia León offered me a sense
of family in Cuzco that made me less lonely, and they shared with me their
knowledge of and experiences in the markets where they did their shopping.
Carolyn Dean, Nada Hughes, Kathryn Burns, Marta Zegarra, Julia Rodriguez,
and Jean-Jacques Decoster understood well the art of combining lively and
sometimes wry conversation with laughter and a good meal now and then. I
was glad to be in their company in Cuzco.
Kathleen Fine-Dare listened, commented, and offered suggestions with
kindness, intelligence, and the trust born of friendship that lasts. I owe Steve
and Sally Herman a special acknowledgment. I value greatly their open-
mindedness and pleasure in intellectual engagement. They have more to do
with this book seeing the light of day than they realize. Florence Babb has been
acknowledgments ix
a pioneer in explaining the unique position and activities of women who
worked in Peru’s markets and the organization and functions of informal
economies. Her contributions have inspired me and led me to delve deeper
into these subjects. Over the years, she has always been a generous mentor.
Her careful and thoughtful review of this manuscript challenged me to achieve
greater clarity and precision in my thinking.
I find it rewarding that the University of Illinois Press is bringing out this
book as the first in the Interpretations of Culture in the New Millennium se-
ries. When I did my graduate training at Illinois, its anthropology faculty was
intense, contradictory, talented, and passionate about their subjects of research.
I think it was precisely the clashes between them that allowed me to forge my
own path, taking what I thought was the best from each. All of them were
committed to doing field research. It was in Norman Whitten’s seminar “Ritual
and Power in Social Life” that I began to think about the material I had gath-
ered between 1974 and 1981 on Carnival festivities in different villages and
market towns of the southern Peruvian highlands and Bolivia. It was at that
moment that I linked ethnicity, religiosity, and power and began exploring,
with Whitten’s encouragement, the position and representation of cholas,
women of mixed indigenous and Hispanic ethnicity, many of whom work in
the markets. My subsequent field research alerted me to the dynamism between
Andean peoples and their physical environment. The cultural and political
knowledge and economic rationality of Quechua people in both city and coun-
tryside continue to remind me today to avoid jumping to conclusions, to lis-
ten, and to look at old practices and situations with new eyes. There is always
more to learn.
I appreciate the commitment that George Mason University’s College of
Arts and Science and the Provost’s Office have made to supporting research
at a time of serious fiscal constraints and am grateful to them for awarding me
a faculty study leave grant and a subsidy for the preparation of the book in-
dex. I owe a special thanks to Laura Kaplan, my graduate research assistant.
She helped me systematically organize my interview data and took a genuine
interest in the subject matter of this book. The Wenner-Gren Foundation re-
mains one of very few foundations that generously supports anthropological
field research. This book would not have been possible without a grant (#6313)
from them in 1998.
The University of Illinois Press staff, particularly Joan Catapano, Theresa
L. Sears, and Carol Anne Peschke, have made the preparation of this book a
pleasure rather than a headache. I am impressed by how smoothly everything
has gone each step of the way.
