Andean Entrepreneurs

by Meisch, Lynn A.

• ISBN13: 9780292752597
• ISBN10: 0292752598
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

Native to a high valley in the Andes of Ecuador, the Otavalos are an indigenous people whose handcrafted textiles and traditional music are now sold in countries around the globe. Known as weavers and merchants since pre-Inca times, Otavalos today live and work in over thirty countries on six continents, while hosting more than 145,000 tourists annually at their Saturday market. In this ethnography of the globalization process, Lynn A. Meisch looks at how participation in the global economy has affected Otavalo identity and culture since the 1970s. Drawing on nearly thirty years of fieldwork, she covers many areas of Otavalo life, including the development of weaving and music as business enterprises, the increase in tourism to Otavalo, the diaspora of Otavalo merchants and musicians around the world, changing social relations at home, the growth of indigenous political power, and current debates within the Otavalo community over preserving cultural identity in the face of globalization and transnational migration. Refuting the belief that contact with the wider world inevitably destroys indigenous societies, Meisch demonstrates that Otavalos are preserving many features of their culture while adopting and adapting modern technologies and practices they find useful.

Author Biography

Lynn A. Meisch is Associate Professor of Anthropology at St. Mary's College of California, Moraga. She has known Otavalo as "a traveler, independent scholar, tour guide, development worker and teacher of textile techniques, leader of study abroad programs, textile collector for museum exhibitions, anthropologist, and godmother to eighteen children from both indigenous and white-mestizo families of varying social and economic classes."

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction: Globalization and Otavalo Life	1	(19)
How the Otavalos Became Otavalos	20	(19)
Textiles and Tourism Move to the Fore	39	(42)
In Search of the Noble Savage: Tourism and Travel to Otavalo	81	(36)
Otavalo Music at Home and Abroad	117	(37)
Otavalo Merchants and Musicians in the Global Arena	154	(46)
Otavalo Wealth and Changing Social Relations	200	(27)
Coping with Globalization	227	(42)
References	269	(38)
Index	307