The Elementary Structuring of Patriarchy : Bolivian Women and Transborder Mobilities in the Andes

Through life histories of Indigenous women, the volume bridges classical anthropological studies on kinship and contemporary research on the gender inequalities in transnational and transborder migrant families. This ethnographically-informed exercise establishes a critical feminist contribution to the study of border territories. -- .

Based on an ethnographic study on the Andean Tri-border (between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia), this volume addresses the experience of Aymara cross-border women from Bolivia employed in the rural valleys on the outskirts of Arica (Chile’s northernmost city). As protagonists of transborder mobility circuits, these women are intersectionally impacted by different forms of social vulnerability. With a feminist anthropological perspective, the book investigates how the boundaries of gender are constructed in the (multi)situated experience of these transborder women. By building a bridge between classical anthropological studies on kinship and contemporary debates on transnational and transborder mobility, the book invites us to rethink structuralist theoretical assertions on the elementary character of family alliances. -- .