Biopolitics in Indigenous Mestizos
Still catching up on me blogs argggh (thats my pirate voice),
The quote from Indigenous Mestizos I would like to focus on for this blog is
“Last but not least, Arguedas was particularly worried about the female vendors’ appearance and their vestido de castilla, the typical mestiza dress, made of hand-woven wool. As the ‘favorite nesting material for bugs and filth [inmundicias] of all sorts, and as a permanent carrier of bacteria’ it should be covered by white, body-length aprons. The white fabric would facilitate the supervision of mestiza cleanliness.”
While reading Indigenous Mestizos, I was especially intrigued how the efforts to modernize cuzco, specifically the sanitation efforts, were not merely about improving infrastructure and public health but were deeply entrenched in controlling mestiza and indigenous women.I saw this through the framework of biopolitics. The focus on hygiene and cleanliness extended beyond public health concerns to encompass a moral and political agenda aimed at disciplining the population. This modernization campaign quickly resulted in Mestiza women’s bodies becoming sites of surveillance and regulation which we still see today. The steadfast insistence on getting rid of the traditional vestido de castilla that the indigenous/mestiza women had been wearing for years, with white, body-length aprons is symbolic of a deeper cultural erasure and regulation of women. The traditional dress, a symbol of mestiza identity and cultural heritage, was deemed unhygienic and inferior. This imposition of Western norms of cleanliness and decency reflects a broader colonial mentality that sought to erase indigenous and mestiza identities and replace them with a homogenized, “civilized” culture. In this way, Mestiza women were subjected to a dual marginalization based on their race and gender. The sanitary campaigns targeted them specifically. Mestiza and indigenous women were viewed through a lens of racial inferiority. Mestiza women, in particular, were seen as morally and sexually deviant, in contrast with the idealized virtues of the “decent” ladies. The elite’s racial prejudices positioned mestiza and indigenous women as inherently unclean and sexually promiscuous. Women were expected to conform to domestic roles and were excluded from political and public life. The few who challenged these norms faced severe social sanctions and were labeled as mannish or dissolute. The societal expectations confined women to roles that upheld the moral and social order dictated by the elite.
I found this similar to South Africa during apartheid, where black women faced intersectional oppression through both racial segregation laws and gendered labor practices, which confined them to low-paying domestic work while subjecting them to strict surveillance and control by the state.
Hi Ben,
This is a fascinating topic that you’ve chosen. Conservatives who advocate for the cleanliness that you speak of- especially in terms of imposing it on women- often appeal to an argument about determinism based on frequency off disease. Like cultures that have a plague respond by imposing these sorts of norms. I think your blog does a good job providing an alternate, more compelling explanation. There are other political, colonial reasons why these norms are enforced. Very cool.
Gabo
Hi Ben,
Thank you for the spectacular post as always! I have never heard the term “biopolitics” before and was very intrigued. Does it only apply to public health and human bodies, or can it also be about, let’s say, the movement and establishment of certain species for political purpose? Like deciding which plants can stay and which must go? Which plants are “good” and which ones are “bad”? The relegation of the vestido de castilla to the private sphere and the enforcement of white, body length aprons in the public sphere deepens the binary between the two worlds that women are forced to navigate. I think it also deepened imposed gender binaries, as you said the few women who dared to challenge the norms were labelled as “mannish”.
Take care,
Cissy
Hi Ben,
I really connect with your take on all the double standards and the intersectional lens through which we can examine mestiza and Indigenous women. There are so many ways that compounding and intersecting oppressive powers affect people with marginalized identities.
I think that biopolitics is a great lens to analyze these problems. I think that, for the Indigenistas and “decent” class, spaces that were not easily regulated and involved the mixture of many different materials and people from different groups were particularly horrifying within their logic of purity. I think that this logic of purity takes some influence from Christianity, though I do not want to necessarily suggest it was not in the Andes before the Spanish. This fear of “mixture” and the lack of clear boundaries between substances I think is also tied to a fear of death–being reduced to undifferentiated substance.
I think that, for the Indigenistas and “decent” class, spaces that were not easily regulated and involved the mixture of many different materials and people from different groups were particularly horrifying within their logic of purity. I think this logic of purity takes some influence from Christianity, though I do not want to claim it was not in the Andes before the Spanish. This fear of “mixture” and the lack of clear boundaries between substances I think is also tied to a fear of death–being reduced to undifferentiated substance.