Silent Looms

by Ehlers, Tracy Bachrach; Nash, June

• ISBN13: 9780292721036
• ISBN10: 029272103X
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

From reviews of the first edition: "This intriguing study of women's role in household, town, and regional economic activity is a very revealing and important contribution to the growing literature on women and social change in Latin America.... Scholars and undergraduates interested in the Indians of Mesoamerica, and, more generally, in the changing relations of men and women everywhere, will welcome this book." --Choice "Ehlers clearly shows the differential impact of capital penetration on women's survival strategies by social class, showing how options for some are limited, for others expanded, but changed for all. Silent Looms would be...an important book to include in courses on women in Latin America, women in development, and feminist methodologies." --Association for Women in Development Newsletter "Ehlers weaves a lively tale as colorful as the huipiles worn by the women she studies. She embroiders the small details that bring to life a whole town of women and children." --Latin American Research Review Based on new fieldwork in 1997, Tracy Bachrach Ehlers has updated her classic study of the effects of economic development on the women weavers of San Pedro Sacatepeacute;quez. Revisiting many of the women she interviewed in the 1970s and 1980s and revising her earlier hopeful assessment of women's entrepreneurial opportunities, Ehlers convincingly demonstrates that development and commercial growth in the region have benefited men at the expense of women.

Author Biography

Tracy Bachrach Ehlers is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Denver.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Acknowledgments	xii
Acknowledgments for the Revised Edition	xvii
Introduction to the Revised Edition	xix
Introduction	1	(25)
Ethnographic Sketch	26	(34)
Female Labor and the Family	60	(36)
Photographs following page	95	(1)
Female Traders	96	(28)
Cottage Industry	124	(27)
Women and Men	151	(29)
Women and Social Change	180	(9)
References	189	(8)
Index	197