The role of women as mineworkers and as household workers has been erased. Here, we challenge the masculinity associated with the mines, taking a longer-term and a global labour history perspective. We foreground the importance of women as mineworkers in different parts of the world since the early modern period and analyse the changes introduced in coal mining in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the masculinization and mechanization, and the growing importance of women in contemporary artisanal and small-scale mining. The effect of protective laws and the exclusion of women from underground tasks was to restrict women's work more to the household, which played a pivotal role in mining communities but is insufficiently recognized. This process of “de-labourization” of women's work was closely connected with the distinction between productive and unproductive labour. This introductory article therefore centres on the important work carried out in the household by women and children. Finally, we present the three articles in this Special Theme and discuss how each of them is in dialogue with the topics addressed here. Many thanks also to Marie-José Spreeuwenberg for her invaluable engagement.
Underground mining in Potosí was a male sphere. Nevertheless, women were actively involved in the early stages of silver mining in Potosí, when traditional technologies were still in use. They also played an important role in the local ore market. After the introduction of new technology and the reorganization of the labour force, the process of refining ore was much more complicated. Women then participated in some stages of the process: in selecting the ores and sieving. This implies that mining is a complex process with a labour and gender division that has been underrated and underestimated. More importantly, women became owners of rudimentary mills (trapiches) where the ore was processed, selling different amounts of silver to the Spanish authorities, making their living in this way.
RESUMEN: El trabajo tiene como objetivo reflexionar sobre los procesos de identificación y representación identitaria en Bolivia. Las identidades y las culturas no sólo conforman elementos compartidos y de coherencia colectiva, sino que también se estructuran en torno a tensiones y contradicciones, y son contextuales y relacionales. Partiendo, por lo tanto, de concepciones de la identidad y de la cultura que se reconocen como conjuntos que no son homogéneos dentro del mismo individuo, el trabajo se acerca a la identidad aymara y mestiza en La Paz, desde una observación de la cotidianidad en dos tipos de comercio en La Paz: los mercados y el comercio callejero. Finalmente, se buscará establecer las asociaciones de clase y de estructuras de dominación que subyacen en este universo de identificaciones.
Labour relations in the silver mines of Potosí are almost synonymous with the mita, a system of unfree work that lasted from the end of the sixteenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, behind this continuity there were important changes, but also other forms of work, both free and self-employed. The analysis here is focused on how the “polity” contributed to shape labour relations, especially from the end of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth century. This article scrutinizes the labour policies of the Spanish monarchy on the one hand, which favoured certain economic sectors and regions to ensure revenue, and on the other the initiatives both of mine entrepreneurs and workers – unfree, free, and self-employed – who all contributed to changing the system of labour.
ResumenEl objetivo de este artículo es abordar, desde un enfoque centrado en el trabajo, tanto la Reforma del Virrey de La Palata como la oposición que generó, rescatando las contribuciones de la historiografía andina y las reflexiones de la renovada historia del trabajo. Se plantea que el proyecto de La Palata buscó "igualar" las situaciones laborales existentes, fundamentalmente la diferencia entre la mita 2 colonial y otras formas de trabajo porque en su interpretación, esas divergencias habían conducido a la decadencia de la minería y a la compleja situación que se había instalado. En una primera parte se examina la unificación y homogeneización que pretendió analizando su Arancel de jornales que demuestra la amplia extensión de la mita en diversas actividades productivas y regiones del Virreinato del Perú. En una segunda parte, en cambio, se analiza la "cadena de coacción" de la mita minera, pero también las estrategias de respuesta y oposición de la población indígena, así como las limitaciones que tenían las autoridades españolas para su control.
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