Women's Place in the Andes

Abstract

Florence E. Babb’s Women’s Place in the Andes draws on long-term anthropological research to develop an analytical framework for reexamining the accumulated research of several decades—her own and that of others—on the complex and often ambiguous interworkings of gender, race, and indigeneity in Andean Peru. She deftly interweaves five new analytical chapters with six of her previously published works that exemplify changing currents in feminist and anthropological thought. She contends that discussion of ethnic and racial inequality in Peru has largely overlooked gender differences and draws on decolonial feminism to redress this problem and offer fresh new insights. She starts from the proposition that Euro-American categories of analysis are not sufficient to shed light on intercultural differences in the past and present context of exclusionary practices in Peru. Instead, she looks to the global South to find inspiration and tools for rethinking intersecting inequalities in relation to her ethnographic work. What emerges is a deeper understanding of the iconic Andean women—who are subjects of both national pride and everyday scorn and neglect—and of gender and race more broadly in Latin America.