Antípoda. Revista de Antropología y Arqueología

Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol | eISSN 2011-4273 | ISSN 1900-5407

The Gender of Debt. Circulation of Social Debt Among Women of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

No. 21 (2015-01-01)
  • Maribel Núñez Rodríguez
https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda21.2015.03

Abstract

The intention of this paper is to analyze the social debt contracted by women in southeastern Ciudad Juarez (Mexico), within the theoretical framework of feminist economic anthropology based on ethnographic data collected there during 2012 at a Nutrition Club where Herbalife is served. Affections, prestige and honor all circulate as women care for themselves, as material, symbolic, emotional and corporal exchanges take place, thus initiating specific forms of sociality and new relationships. Gifts, as a system of reciprocities, generate and sustain bonds of trust; debt itself can become ambivalent, like the femininity of these women, which is questioned and reconstructed amid of oppressive contexts.

Keywords: social debt, gifts, women, economic anthropology, feminism

References

Bossen, Laurel. 1991. Las mujeres y las instituciones económicas. En Antropología económica, comp. Stuart Plattner, pp. 432-475. México, Conaculta/Alianza.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 2006. Argelia 60. México, FCE.

Godbout, Jacques. 1997. El espíritu del don. México, Siglo XXI.

Godelier, Maurice. 1998. El enigma del don. Barcelona, Paidós.

Kreutzer, Saskia. 2004. Una mujer con dinero es peligrosa. En Antropología de la deuda: crédito, ahorro, fiado y prestado en las finanzas cotidianas, coord. Magdalena Villarreal, pp. 143-178. México, Ciesas-Porrua- Cámara de Diputados.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1971. Introducción a la obra de Marcel Mauss. En Sociología y Antropología, ed. MarcelMauss, pp. 13-42. Madrid, Tecnos.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1972 [1922] Los argonautas del Pacífico occidental. Barcelona, Ed. Península.

Mauss, Marcel. 2009. [1924]. Ensayo sobre el don. Forma y función del intercambio en las sociedades arcaicas. Buenos Aires, Katz.

Miller, Daniel. 1999. Ir de compras: una teoría. México, Siglo XXI.

Polanyi, Karl. 2003 [1944]. La gran transformación. Los orígenes políticos y económicos de nuestro tiempo. México, FCE.

Rubin, Gayle. 1975. The Traffic in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex. Toward and Anthropology of Women, ed. RaynaReiter, Nueva York, Monthly Review Press.

Sahlins, M. 1983. Economía de la Edad de Piedra. Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar Publishing.

Strathern, Marilyn. 1988. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia.Berkeley, University of California Press.

Weiner, Annette. 1992. Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping While Giving. Berkeley, University of California Press.