Atamisqui women: the weavers

Abstract

The present work consists is part of the “corpus” of knowledge achieved through the research: “The study of historical processes within living memory from Villa Atamisqui” 1993-1996, directed by Lic. José Togo, affiliated with the Council for Technical and Scientific Research (CICYT) of the National University of Santiago del Estero (UNSE).

A study carried out from a qualitative perspective, resorting to the technique of “oral history” with in-depth and semi-structured interviews, these data are analyzed in three dimensions: 1. the construction (interpretation) of their identity, 2. their relationship with the local community and, 3. their relationship with the economic system.

The learning of the weaver's activity is characterized as part of the social process that implies meetings among mothers, daughters and relatives in order to spin, dye and weave and where knowledge is transmitted related to the techniques and procedures needed to attain a certain kind of weft and pattern in the blankets which gives each of them a particular and unique feature.

If the migratory trend of the weavers' daughters continues, it may stop the “transmission” of knowledge as well as the craft. In the same way the impossibility of placing the production on the market would lead them to look for new methods of alternative income and thus lacking cultural, social and economic encouragement this craft would become extinct in the short run.