Indigenous women, forms of work and collective politics

A collaborative ethnography of "doing together" in the context of pandemic (Salta, Argentina)

Abstract

This article reports on an experience of political organization of indigenous women of the Kolla people of the municipality of Nazareno (Province of Salta, Argentina) who, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, formed a collective of artisan work based on the fabric, called Warmis de Nazareno. With the aim of addressing the overlap between forms of work and collective politics, the article focuses on the daily and collective practices through which women sustain life and produce singular political agendas, building and disputing meanings of doing together. To do this, their practices as a group of women are described and analyzed, the ways in which they articulate their daily work and the discussions about the places they want to occupy in areas where the construction of strategies around the struggle for the territory. At the same time, the writing presents some methodological guidelines on which our perspective is based, inscribed in the field of collaborative and committed ethnography. The inputs of the work are the trajectories and voices of the women registered in various meetings, audiovisual productions, reports and projects related to the group of women in which we participate, intervene and collaborate.