Cholas and Pishtacos: Stories of Race and Sex in the Andes / Edition 1

by Mary Weismantel

Overview

Winner of the 2003 Senior Book Prize from the American Ethnological Society.

Cholas and Pishtacos are two provocative characters from South American popular culture--a sensual mixed-race woman and a horrifying white killerwho show up in everything from horror stories and dirty jokes to romantic novels and travel posters. In this elegantly written book, these two figures become vehicles for an exploration of race, sex, and violence that pulls the reader into the vivid landscapes and lively cities of the Andes. Weismantel's theory of race and sex begins not with individual identity but with three forms of social and economic interaction: estrangement, exchange, and accumulation. She maps the barriers that separate white and Indian, male and female-barriers that exist not in order to prevent exchange, but rather to exacerbate its inequality.

Weismantel weaves together sources ranging from her own fieldwork and the words of potato sellers, hotel maids, and tourists to classic works by photographer Martin Chambi and novelist José María Arguedas. Cholas and Pishtacos is also an enjoyable and informative introduction to a relatively unknown region of the Americas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226891545
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	12/15/2001
Series:	Women in Culture and Society
Edition description:	1
Pages:	334
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Mary Weismantel is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and chair of Latin American studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Food, Gender and Poverty in the Ecuadorian Andes.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Indian and White
Part One: Estrangement
1. City of Indians
2. City of Women
Part Two: Exchange
3. Sharp Trading
4. Deadly Intercourse
Part Three: Accumulation
5. White Men
6. The Black Mother
Afterword: Strong Smells
Notes
Works Cited
Index