Description
Book Synopsis''This time show us like we really are!'' This mandate from Do-a Clara, homemaker-market merchant in the community of TepoztlOn, makes explicit the dimensions of this concertedly empirical, multidisciplinary study of women''s ways of using a neoliberal development model that systematically disadvantages them to create value and values. Members of one of the first New World populations to have their labor globally feminized, into the twenty-first century, Tepoztecas have continuously contrived to adjust organizationally to production-reproduction systems that use gender inequalities to be global. The many faceted work experiences and broad academic interests of the anthropologist/author uniquely equip her to demystify and give a history to women''s work during the period of 1990 to 2000, a time of great transformation for Tepoztecas on the frontlines of massive economic, social, and political challenges for stakeholders. The ''strange reciprocity'' disaggregated as worksite exchanges of valued things is women''s ways of turning to their advantage the very ideologies and technologies that simultaneously make them central to Free Market capitalism while constraining their access to resources that can be exchanged at prices set by and for awesomely powerful interests_or not. Nevertheless, Strange Reciprocity qualitatively and quantitatively confirms that as Tepoztecas construct small economies against the grain of what take over agendas seem to have in mind for them, they are structurally adjusting the big economies of the winners.
Trade ReviewStrange Reciprocity analyzes the special impact of the New Economy in shaping women’s work and the reciprocal effect of how this adaptation strengthens and validates the extreme exploitation that women experience. -- June Nash, City University of New York
Anthropologist Sidney S. Perutz's Strange Reciprocity: Mainstreaming Women's Work in Tepoztlan in the 'Decade of the New Economy' is an extensive and detailed ethnographic study. . . . The author's rich observations of women's and men's activities in the context of the household and the national economy make this a feminist ethnography of interest to advanced doctoral students versed in cultural theory and professionals of all disciplines concerned with feminist analysis of paid and unpaid labor. * Feminist Economics, January 2010 *
This is a multi-faceted study with several layers of context, including a historical context that is sustained and well done, especially for the twentieth century. All of the facets Sidney Perutz pursues are addressed seriously and well in both descriptive and interpretative ways. -- William B. Taylor, University of California, Berkeley
An extensive and detailed ethnographic study of Tepoztlan….the author's rich observations of women's and men's activities in the context of the household and the national economy make this a feminist ethnography of interest to advanced doctoral students versed in cultural theory and professionals of all disciplines concerned with feminist analysis of paid and unpaid labor. * Feminist Economics, January 6, 2010 *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction: Keywords Chapter 2 Chapter 1. Mainstreaming Women's Work Processes Chapter 3 Chapter 2. Articulating Tepozteca into Commodity Culture[s] Chapter 4 Chapter 3. Local/Global Constellations Chapter 5 Chapter 4. Women's Work In and Out of Economic Space and Time Chapter 6 Chapter 5. Counting and Measuring Gender, 1990-2000 Chapter 7 Chapter 6. New Economy Housework Chapter 8 Chapter 7. Three Primary Feminized Occupations Chapter 9 Chapter 8. Making the Market System Work Chapter 10 Chapter 9. Embedded in the Market Chapter 11 Chapter 10. Fixed Mercado Trading Chapter 12 Chapter 11. A Postindustrial Market System Chapter 13 Chapter 12. Feminization and Community Survival Strategies Chapter 14 Chapter 13. Gender Mainstreaming Insights
