Rural Chiapanecan women and social relations in production: Towards a solidarity economy?

Abstract

This paper analyses shifts in social relations taking place among groups of working women in Chiapas, México. Heterogeneity and difference is identified here as a peculiar feature that characterises much of the female condition in the context of social interactions in the production and trading of alimentary products in the area. The paper argues that in these sort of relationships there are many recognisable “poverty paradoxes” wherein independent female producers combine in their set of trading practices different and sometimes contradictory forms of commerce. Traditional cooperative forms of labour – rural family based exchange –are sometimes articulated with other dominant logics of the capitalist market. Thus this sort of practices generates peculiar forms of social differentiation and stratification for working women which in the midst of individual rivalry and competition also hinder cooperative forms of collective organization that could represent the achievement of common goals with better profits.

Keywords: working women, relationships, traditional cooperative, female condition.