Weaving a Future

A case study on the valuation of Fair Trade among female handicraft producers in Peru and Bolivia Wageningen University – Department of Social Sciences

MSc Thesis Sociology of Development and Change

Weaving a Future A case study on the valuation of Fair Trade among female handicraft producers in Peru and Bolivia

November 2016

MSc program Name of student: International Development Studies Merel Haverhals

Specialisation: Name of Supervisor: Sociology of Development and Change dr. A.M.G. Arce

Thesis code: Name of Second Assessor: SDC-80433 dr.ir. G.M. Verschoor

DISCLAIMER This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Sciences, International Development Studies at the Chair Group Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University and Research Centre. The author declares that this thesis is original work except where stated. This declaration constitutes an assertion that full and accurate references and citations have been included for all material contributing to this thesis. All pictures in this document are taken with consent from the people that appear in them. Each of them granted the author permission to use their picture for publication purposes. The author authorizes Wageningen University and Research Centre to make this master thesis available for consultation purposes.

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to gain insight into the valuation of Fair Trade among female handicraft producers in Peru and Bolivia. An ethnographic approach was applied to explore local experiences and meaning making in the light of commoditization processes of the handicraft. Four sites in Peru, and one in Bolivia, served as main locations for observations, group-discussions and qualitative interviews. The ‘logic of diversion’ (Appadurai, 1986) provided the bases for a theoretical discussion on the transformation of materiality and its investment with a new range of social, aesthetic, cultural and economic value. To gain an understanding of women’s changing social realities, including notions of empowerment, production and consumption were linked through the interplay between objects and identities. Focusing on the process of interaction between producers, consumers, Fair Trade Organizations and handicrafts, the creation of relationships (with both human and non-human actors) and transformations among women’s livelihoods were brought to the fore. It becomes clear that through FT, an economic niche is created where objects incorporate both commercial and social value, based on criteria of ‘authenticity’ that are only imperfectly translatable into market prices. These findings are significant as they help us move beyond neoliberal representations of development.

Key words: Fair Trade, artisans, women, empowerment, commoditization, handicraft, authenticity

To my partner, best friend, and favorite person in the world Thank you for giving me the wings

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it” J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Acknowledgements

Starting this research project more than three years ago, I had no idea what was in store for me. Venturing out on my own marked the beginning of a personal adventure that opened the door to a whirlwind of emotions I had been carrying with me for a long time. Going through this intense period, I fought my way out of a deep low and ended up in the light at the end of the tunnel. I am so very grateful to all the people who supported me over the course of this period, you have no idea how crucial this has been for me.

Let me begin by thanking my supervisor, Alberto Arce. From the very start you have been there to guide me through the research process. When I was overwhelmed, stuck or lost, you provided me with a way out. You inspired me to work hard and push forward, even when doubts took over. During all the turbulence in my life, you were there to support me and patiently wait while I made my way back. Thank you for your empathy and endless understanding, but most of all, thank you for believing in me.

I want to thank all the families in Peru and Bolivia who opened their houses to me during my fieldwork period. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, Edmundo took me in as his own and made me feel loved and appreciated from the very moment I stepped in. His daughter Yara taught me that strength and courage can overcome life’s greatest obstacles. In Ollantaytambo, Peru, both families I stayed with welcomed me as their guest and made sure I wasn’t short on anything. In Patacancha, two families humbly shared their house and food with me, and let me be part of some intimate family moments. In Bolivia, Ricardo guided me through El Alto, and Fanny would cook the most beautiful dishes for me.

Both Awamaki and Ayni Bolivia have proven to be very helpful in connecting me to different groups of female artisans, I am very appreciative of their support. I furthermore want to mention the volunteers I had the pleasure of working with in Peru. You created a home for me in a strange place and our discussions brought more depth to my experiences in the field.

A big thank you to my parents for giving me the opportunity to undertake this adventure and their encouragement and patience along the way. And to my in-laws for the countless meals they prepared for us, the hours of babysitting, and just for being there.

Finally, thank you to the person who never let me give up the fight, who saw me when I lost sight of myself, and who inspires me to aim for the stars.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 5 Acknowledgements ...... 7 List of Figures ...... 10 1. Introduction ...... 11 1.1 Fair Trade, women and handicrafts ...... 11 1.2 Problem statement ...... 13 1.3 Introduction to the research analysis ...... 14 1.4 Objective of the research project & research questions ...... 15 1.5 Structure thesis...... 16 2. Methodology ...... 17 2.1 Qualitative research methods ...... 17 2.1.1 Literature study ...... 18 2.1.2 Participant observations ...... 18 2.1.3 Interviews (single & group) ...... 18 2.1.4 Focus group discussions ...... 19 2.1.5 Visual material (photos & videos) ...... 19 2.2 Qualitative data analysis ...... 19 2.3 Fieldwork sites ...... 20 2.3.1 Patacancha, Peru ...... 22 2.3.2 Huilloc, Peru...... 22 2.3.3 Puente Inca, Peru ...... 23 2.3.4 Rumira, Peru ...... 23 2.3.5 El Alto, La Paz, Bolivia ...... 23 2.4 Fair Trade Organizations...... 24 2.4.1 Awamaki, Ollantaytambo, Peru ...... 24 2.4.2 Ayni Bolivia, La Paz, Bolivia ...... 24 2.5 Access to the research group ...... 25 2.5.1 Bolivia ...... 25 2.5.2 Peru...... 25 2.6 Limitations of the research ...... 26 3. Conceptual Framework ...... 28

3.1 Theories of value: Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’...... 28 3.2 Women’s empowerment ...... 30 4. Fair Trade and handicraft in Peru & Bolivia ...... 32 4.1 Changes in the Fair Trade arena ...... 32 4.2 Fair Trade handicraft certification labels ...... 33 4.2.1 World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) ...... 34 4.2.2 Fair Trade Federation (FTF) ...... 36 4.3 Handicraft in Peru and Bolivia ...... 37 4.4 Fair Trade’s global representation of handicraft production ...... 40 4.5 Local significance of handicraft production ...... 42 5. Reworking ‘the material’ and ‘the social’ ...... 48 5.1 Changing materiality: valuing the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’ ...... 48 5.2 Rise of new handicrafts movement ...... 62 5.3 Fair Trade’s effects in ‘the social’ ...... 68 5.3.1 Changing social relations through Fair Trade cooperation ...... 68 5.3.2 Gender equality and women’s empowerment ...... 75 6. Discussion ...... 81 6.1 Moving beyond the ‘logic of diversion’ ...... 81 6.2 From ‘logic of diversion’ to ‘diverted economy’ ...... 83 7. Conclusion ...... 85 7.1 ‘Logic of diversion’ in terms of the FT handicraft ...... 85 7.2 From subjective to objective valuation of the FT handicraft ...... 87 7.3 Women’s empowerment and gender equality ...... 88 7.4 Intertwining ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ practices in women’s production of the handicraft ...... 89 7.5 Usefulness Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’ ...... 91 Bibliography ...... 93 Appendix A: Fieldwork activities & respondents...... 96 Appendix B: Interview questions ...... 99 Appendix C: Topics Focus Group discussion ...... 101 Appendix D: Fieldwork experience ...... 102

List of Figures

Figure 1: The study area with fieldwork sites in Peru ...... 21 Figure 2: The study area with fieldwork site in Bolivia ...... 21 Figure 3: Women of the Patacancha weaving cooperative (taken by the author at 27/11/14) ...... 22 Figure 4: Women of the Huilloc spinning cooperative (taken from the Awamaki website at 02/04/15) ...... 22 Figure 5: Women from the Puente Inca knitting cooperative (taken from the Awamaki website at 02/04/15) ... 23 Figure 6: Women of the Rumira knitting cooperative (taken from Awamaki website at 02/04/15) ...... 23 Figure 7: Women of the knitting workshop in EL Alto, La Paz (taken by the author at 26/01/15) ...... 23 Figure 8: Logo WFTO mark ...... 33 Figure 9: Logo Fairtrade label ...... 33 Figure 10: Logo FTF ...... 34 Figure 11: Chullos on display at the CTTC (taken by the author at 30/11/14) ...... 37 Figure 12: Woman from Patacancha using a backstrap loom (taken by the author at 8/11/14) ...... 38 Figure 13: Man working on a treadle loom in Guatamala (taken from kickstarter website at 16/11/16) ...... 38 Figure 14: Woman from Patacancha working the pushka (taken by the author at 8/11/14)...... 39 Figure 15: Fanny working on a manual knitting machine (taken by the author at 27/01/15) ...... 39 Figure 16: Weavers in Patacancha (taken from the Awamaki website at 17/11/16) ...... 42 Figure 17: Girl in Patacancha wearing pollera with bright flower pattern (taken by the author at 12/01/15) ...... 50 Figure 18: Woman and man from Patacancha (taken in 1979) ...... 50 Figure 19: Woman from Patacancha (taken in 1979)...... 50 Figure 20: Handwoven products for sale at the FT store in Ollantaytambo (taken by the author at 09/01/15) ... 52 Figure 21: Handwoven products for sale at the FT store in Ollantaytambo (taken by the author at 09/01/15) ... 52 Figure 22: Textiles that are sold to tourists in Patacancha (taken by the author at 10/11/14) ...... 52 Figure 23: Boys from Patacancha wearing their poncho (taken by the author at 12/01/15) ...... 52 Figure 24: Pollera worn by one of the girls in Patacancha (taken by author 19/01/15) ...... 53 Figure 25: Scarves with older pallay (taken by the author at 10/01/15) ...... 54 Figure 26: Textiles that include newer, more advanced pallay (taken by author 10/01/15)...... 55 Figure 27: Lliklla hanging to dry in Patacancha (taken by the author at 08/11/14) ...... 56 Figure 28: Virginia and her youngest child during a photoshoot (taken by the author at 16/12/14) ...... 57 Figure 29: Pallay on FT bag (taken by author at 27/10/14) ...... 57 Figure 30: Guitar straps sold to tourists in Patacancha (taken by author at 12/01/15) ...... 58 Figure 31: Knitwear for sale at the FT store in Ollantaytambo (taken by the author at 08/01/15) ...... 59 Figure 32: Knitwear for sale at ‘Moderna Alpaca’, La Paz (taken by the author at 27/01/15) ...... 60 Figure 33: Children’s vest made for an international client, El Alto (taken by the author at 27/01/15) ...... 60

1. Introduction

The introduction is divided into four sections; first I will introduce the research topic by describing developments concerning Fair Trade and women handicrafts producers. The second part focuses on the problem statement. The next part introduces the research analysis and is followed by the objectives of the research project and resulting research questions. The fourth section provides a structural outline of the thesis.

1.1 Fair Trade, women and handicrafts In recent decades, the growth of global markets for agricultural products, manufactured goods, and artisanal items made a broad selection of consumer goods available in industrialized countries. This seemingly endless expansion of consumer choice is rooted in the process of neoliberal globalization, and resulted in a dismantling of most state policies regulating the movement of capital and commodities across national borders (Brennan, 2003). The global sourcing of new products, combined with the ongoing volatility associated with markets for bulk commodities such as coffee, tea, cocoa and bananas, has led to heightened awareness of global wealth disparities (Moberg & Lyon, 2010). In many cases, it is especially the women who lack access to modern technologies, capital, land and other productive resources which disables them to benefit from this type of economic development. Most of women’s employment in developing countries is furthermore found in poorly paid, ‘informal’ labor- intensive production with insecure and unstable terms of employment (Hutchens, 2010). In response to these developments, Fair Trade1 (FT) is an orientation that seeks greater equity in international trade by creating closer linkages between consumers and producers in the geopolitical North and South (Fisher, 2009). FT advocates claim that the movement challenges processes that “de- value and exploit disadvantaged people and the environment”, and aims to “re-embed commodity circuits within ecological and social relations” (Raynolds, 2000, p. 298). It is seen as a means to create solidarity and mutual respect between regions and thereby substituting capitalist motives of competition and profit maximization (Moberg & Lyon, 2010). The ideological basis of FT has been identified as a “moral economy” (Leutchford, 2008, p. 152), that guards human rights, highlights labor issues, ensures sustainable environmental practices, promotes economic justice, and preserves culturally embedded traditions (Grimes, 2000). From small beginnings as an alternative movement selling craft items through outlets such as charity shops, FT products have become widely available to consumers in Europe and the United

1 The term ‘Fair Trade’ (FT) is used to refer broadly to the movement and markets; ‘Fairtrade’ refers to products certified by Fairtrade Labelling Organization International (FLO).

States, creating long-term partnerships between Fair Trade Organizations (FTOs) and producer cooperatives2. Broadly it can be stated that in the North, FT emerged as a social movement that sought to generate redistributive justice for poor producers in developing countries through the market, rather than the state (Fisher, 2009). Both women’s empowerment3 and gender4 equality are fundamental goals of FT5. Development and anthropological literature highlights the specific importance of the handicraft sector to women’s economic livelihood. For many poor women with low levels of skills and education, handicraft activities are one of the only viable options for employment and income generation. FT certified non-foods, compared to Fairtrade certified foods, are primarily produced by women (Hutchens, 2010). While Fairtrade is accused of failing to alter gender relations (Lyon, 2010), a significant amount of research (Ehlers, 1993; Nash & Hopkins, 1976; Olson, 1999) shows that women’s participation in artisan6 FT cooperatives has the possibility to promote positive economic and social changes in their communities (Lyon et al., 2010). Especially research on female weaving cooperatives indicate that FT can help individual artisans to determine the nature of their own participation in global markets, help them gain decision-making power, increase their economic and political importance (Stephen, 2005), and help women develop more direct links to (FT) markets (Lyon et al., 2010). The 80s brought a boom in the international sale of antique hand-woven cloth from the Andes and other regions in the world. Improved transportation and communication systems enable once remote artisan groups to reach ever wider regional and global markets (Zorn, 2004). Where for many centuries goods flowed from industrial centers to the colonies, today we can speak of “a reverse flow, as consumers seek the exotic and unique objects of handicraft production in Third World countries” (Nash, 1993, pp. 1, 2). The high profile given to indigenous identities in many countries today is due to pressure from people (tourists, governments, or nongovernmental organizations) beyond the nation who see indigenous people as embodiments of authentic cultures, values, or an exceptional socioeconomic position (Canessa, 2012). FT taps into these feelings by emphasizing their efforts to help

2 A cooperative is defined as an organization which is jointly owned and run by its members, who equally share the profits and/or benefits. 3 ‘Empowerment’ can be defined as “a process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire the ability to do so” (Kabeer, 1999, p. 437). Dimensions of empowerment include: resources (human, material, social), serving to enhance the ability to make choices and shape one’s life; agency, “the ability to define one’s goals and act upon them”, and; achievements, the manifestations or outcomes of the different choices, and the different shapes their live take (Kabeer, 2005). 4 ‘Gender’ is conceptualized as the socially constructed difference between women and men (Kabeer, 1999). Thus gender is about how society gives meaning to differences in femininity and masculinity, and the power relations and dynamics that characterize how women and men interact (Laven & Verhart, 2011). 5 http://www.fairtrade.net/programmes/gender.html (accessed on 14/11/2016). 6 ‘Artisan’ and ‘handicraft producer’ are used interchangeably, as both refer to a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand

12 sustain the handicraft sector with its “rich and diverse meaning as it comprises century-old traditions with production techniques passed down from one generation to the next”7.

1.2 Problem statement The problem statement is fourfold: first, much of the literature concerned with FT has taken the language of FT advocates as its starting point. This discourse builds heavily on ‘alternative globalization’ and ‘decommodification models’ explained by Fridell (2007) as those segments of the movement that challenge the free market assumptions of neoliberalism and the impersonal nature of market-based relationships. However, comparatively little attention has been paid to the processes by which these values are being established among FT producers and consumers (Moberg & Lyon, 2010). “A focus on institutional, technical and business dimensions can lose sight of the people whose livelihoods are the raison d’être for FT — and for whom categories such as ‘producer’ (and ‘consumer’) serve to diminish multifarious life worlds and realities” (Fisher, 2009, p. 31). This raises the question of how FT producers experience and negotiate the policies introduced to them (Fisher, 2009). Second, it was found that most research that strives for a critical analysis on certification and ethical consumption has tended to deal almost exclusively with FT food, organic food and sustainable forest products. The small group of dedicated scholars that have explored the ethical production and trade of handicrafts have not focused on the role of certification programs and their influence in re- defining the ‘nature’ of these exchanges (Marston, 2013). Third, ethnographers often seem to ignore the role of material artifacts. While the rise of material culture has brought some of the relevant issues to the fore, there remains a tendency for material goods and objects to be neglected in ethnographic work (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). Little attention has been paid to the symbolic dimensions of FT encounters as mediated through the material objects produced, and the role of consumer expectations in shaping productive practices and producer’s cultural identities (Wilson, 2010). And finally, despite clear statements of support for FT’s contribution to women’s empowerment, a small body of empirical research on women in FT (mostly those in FLO’s system), casts doubt on FT’s contribution to women’s empowerment and gender equity (Hutchens, 2010). Here, an analysis that moves beyond economic indicators, through inclusion of the socio- cultural effects of processes of commoditization, is what is often lacking.

7 http://wfto.com/news/fair-trade-and-its-importance-handicrafts-producers (accessed on 15/09/2016)

1.3 Introduction to the research analysis FT handicraft production is one of the activities within the global processes of commoditisation that this thesis will take to explore transformations among women’s livelihoods by analysing how tradition and modernity intertwine in women’s everyday practices of the handicraft. Taking the (changing) aesthetics as a central aspect within processes of transformation allows us to better interrogate the relationships between producers, objects and value (Cant, 2014). Central to this analysis of FT handicrafts is Appadurai’s (1986, p. 25) “logic of diversion”, who explains commodities as being ‘things’ in a certain situation. Rather than to make a distinction between commodities and other sorts of things, he suggests we look at the commodity potential of all things. Moving away from viewing a commodity as an object holding a fixed commodity status, we should focus on the “social life of things” (1986, p.13), their biography, as they follow the trajectory from production, through exchange, to consumption. Within their social lives objects move in and out of the commodity state. This, Appadurai (1986) explains with the ‘logic of diversion’, where objects are diverted, and by this commoditised, from their original pathways, after which they can be ‘decommoditized’ again by turning them into something ‘unique’. In terms of FT handicrafts this means that value is accelerated or enhanced by placing objects in unlikely contexts. Through a process in which an object is taken out of its normal context, in our case The Andes, new values are attached to it, converting an everyday object into something exotic. The values obtained through this process of diversion (Appadurai, 1986), is different from processes of valuation than are based on the neoliberal idea of efficiency and ‘supply and demand’. Here, we not only need a supply of ‘things’, as is the case with other commodities, but also the supply of information about them (Spooner, 1986). The ‘logic of diversion’ may help us to make sense of processes of resistances and appropriation of market opportunities by illustrating the complex ways in which Andean handicrafts and cultures come to be, and are mutually constituted in multiple localities (the North and the South), through local, national and transnational discourses, and by acts of learning, weaving and selling (Wood, 2008). Focusing on the way in which new values are materialized in FT handicrafts can help explain how these things with new meaning are influencing producers and consumers through FT’s play with multiplicities of values – social and commercial, traditional and modern – that all come together in the materiality of these handicrafts (Wilson, 2010). Here we follow Arce and Long (2000), who, by surpassing Western rationality in the context of globalization, argue for an analysis that aims to explore how ideas and practices of modernity are appropriated and re-embedded in locally situated practices. How people blend together aspects from the ‘global’ and the ‘local’, the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’, and create counterworks of modernization

14 in the face of market expansion and neoliberal representations of development. By looking at the biography of the handicraft, and see how different modern and traditional elements are combined, we can uncover how artisans are affected by the handicraft and how they affect the handicraft. The production of handicrafts must therefore be understood within the “social, cultural and spatial geography [that emerges] as a product of the lives and practices engaged in the making of Andean textiles” (Wood, 2008, p. 15).

1.4 Objective of the research project & research questions The objective of this research project is threefold; first, it aims to position FT within the capitalistic economic system by examining its policies and activities, and by questioning whether FT serves as a counterwork of modernization based on a social economy value chain dynamic that provides us with an alternative to the dominant capitalistic market. Here, we look at the social and material outcomes of the values created through FT, incorporating both commercial and social aims, to see whether FT changes the ‘way of life’ of its producers. Secondly, by focusing on the ambiguity between resistances against processes of commoditization and processes of appropriation on the other hand found at the producer’s level, this project hopes to uncover how globalization is incorporated in the everyday lives of female handicraft producers. The objective here is to inspect the changing and diversifying materiality of handicrafts and see what this tells us about the producers. Are they purely making Western style products or is there something of them in there, a symbolic element of what they ‘are’? It aims to see if, and how, they keep the balance between commercialization and their ‘authenticity’, and whether it is still an act of care, not just money. In analyzing these processes, Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’ will play a central role. The third objective then is to reflect on this concept by questioning its applicability in explaining processes of commoditization at the local level. Together, these objectives point to an understanding of how FT is valued among female handicraft producers. The following research questions are formulated based on the objectives:

1. To what extent is FT an association of consumer interest representing the ‘logic of diversion’ within the global process of commoditization? 2. How do ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ practices intersect and intertwine in women’s everyday production of the handicraft? 3. To what extent does the ‘logic of diversion’ help to explain local dynamics at the social level?

1.5 Structure thesis The thesis is structured as follows: Chapter 2 explains the methodology this research is build on. Chapter 3 turns to the theoretical concepts that will be used to gain understanding of the social and material expressions that have been captured during the fieldwork period. Chapter 4 gives us the story of FT and their work with handicraft in Peru and Bolivia. Chapter 5 continues with an empirical description of the handicraft experiences that were encountered in the field. Chapter 6 is comprised of a reflection on the theoretical concepts and what this can tell us for future ‘development’. Chapter 7 then closes the thesis by answering the research questions.

2. Methodology

The methodology of this thesis is based on an ethnographic approach, which is ideally suited to the study of “concrete social fields at specific moments” (Deleuze & Parnet, 2002, p. 135), as ethnography has a “powerful capacity to capture the complex dynamics of social relations” (Gunewardena & Kingslover, 2008, p. 15). Rather than treating the analysis of artifacts as a separate domain, this research aims to analyze material goods and objects in their broad ethnographic contexts. The ethnography of everyday life needs to bring attention to its material features and how social actors engage with physical things, because “there are many social relationships that are crystallized and embodied in material objects” (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 134). The ethnography of this thesis is built on four primary research methods: semi-structured interviews, participant observations, focus-group discussion, and visual material. Research was undertaken in Bolivia for one month (2013 and 2015), and three more months in Peru (2015). In other words, this is a multi-sided ethnography, proposed by Marcus (1995) as a way to examine global processes and the increasing interconnectedness of people and things through the process of globalization. Multi-sided ethnography is concerned with the movement of ideas, people and commodities through time and space. Observing and participating in multiple sites can overcome dichotomies such as local/global, and lifeworld/system (ibid.). Participant observations were carried out in 2013 and 2015 with five different FT cooperatives. In 2015, I conducted ten single interviews, two multiple interviews, and I organized two focus-group discussions. Visual material was gathered in both 2013 and 2015. This chapter is divided into six sections. The first and second section give an outline of the qualitative methods of research and analysis. In the second section a description of the fieldwork sites is given, followed by information on the local FTOs. In the next part I will talk about the process of gaining access to the research group, and the last section sums up the limitations of this research project.

2.1 Qualitative research methods This section gives an overview of the qualitative research methods I applied over the course of this project. A table that includes all fieldwork activities and background information on the respondents can be found under Appendix A.

2.1.1 Literature study This research project started out with a literature study on FT and women artisans in Peru and Bolivia. I read about the history and development of the FT movement and recent criticisms it encountered. Furthermore, I focused on the role of women in international trade, and how FT incorporates principles regarding gender issues and women’s empowerment in their marketing statements. Because of my interest in handicraft production and its changing materiality as it shifts between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ processes of value, I focused on concepts that would help me explain these processes. Following the literature study, I created a framework including the main concepts I would be examining in the field, based on this I came up with a preliminary list of topics and open-ended questions to be used in the field. These can be found under Appendix B.

2.1.2 Participant observations Functioning as a participant observer was what I did most while in the field. “Observational methods allow the researcher to record the mundane and unremarkable (for participants) features of everyday life and the context within which they occur” (Green & Thorogood, 2009, p. 148). In my role as participant observer I tried to be involved “in the daily activities, rituals, interactions, and events of a group of people as one of the means of learning the explicit and tacit aspects of their life routines and their culture” (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002, p. 1). For me this meant that when I was in the field I would try to participate in everyday activities while at the same time being cautious with drawing to much attention to myself. During these moments, I would observe what was happening around me, make short conversations, and recollect these experiences afterwards when writing out my field notes.

2.1.3 Interviews (single & group) I choose to combine both single and group interviews, because in a group interview, “the researcher ideally has access to the interaction between the participants, as well as between the interviewer and interviewed. This, in theory provides a more ‘naturalistic’ setting, resembling in some ways the kinds of interaction people might have in their daily lives” (Green & Thorogood, 2009, p. 128). Single interviews on the other hand are valuable because the respondent might not feel free to talk about certain things when in the presence of others. Both single and group interviews were semi-structured, which meant that I knew the topics I wanted to discuss, but adjusted my questions according to the amount of understanding and response I encountered.

2.1.4 Focus group discussions During my three months in Peru, I organized two focus group discussions; one in Huilloc and another one in Patacancha. Green and Thorogood (2009) describe a focus group as a small group of people brought together to discuss a particular issue under the direction of a facilitator who has a list of topics to discuss. Focus groups are said to have the potential for producing a considerable amount of information in a relatively short amount of time (ibid.). The focus groups were aimed at examining women’s understanding of FT and social changes that had occurred because of their involvement with FT and tourism. The focus group in Patacancha was led by myself, another volunteer and Mercedes (Awamaki staff). I choose to involve Mercedes because of the size of the group (30 women were present) and the fact that she works with the women on a regular basis and knows Quechua (most women there don’t speak Spanish). In Huilloc 14 women participated in the focus group that was led by me and another volunteer. A list of topics discussed during the group discussion can be found under Appendix C.

2.1.5 Visual material (photos & videos) Visual material serves an important purpose in this research project as it builds around the visual materiality of the handicraft. “Photography has long been used in anthropology. Video-recording is more recent but is now widely used as well. Despite this, there is still a tendency to think of written language as the privileged medium of scholarly communication” (Green & Thorogood, 2009, pp. 148, 149). Nonetheless, the collection and use of visual materials has gained popularity due to the increasing cultural analysis in social sciences. Visual materials and representations of material culture are key aspects of such research. This includes the ethnography of design and the analysis of ‘things’ in certain ‘spaces’ (Green & Thorogood, 2009).

2.2 Qualitative data analysis Qualitative data analysis is the range of processes and procedures whereby we move from the collected qualitative data into some form of explanation, understanding or interpretation of the people and situations we are investigating8. Broadly, the goals of most qualitative analysis are to reflect the complexity of the phenomena studied, as well as present the underlying structure to make sense of that complexity (Green & Thorogood, 2009). As a researcher, I aimed to ‘tell the story’ from the participant’s

8 Taylor, C. & Gibbs, G. (2010) "What is Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA)?", Online QDA Web Site, [onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/Intro_QDA/what_is_qda.php]

19 point of view, while simultaneously creating linkages to the implications this has for the future of FT, development and sociological theory. In ethnography, the analysis of data is not a distinct stage of the research, as it already begins in the pre-fieldwork phase in the formulation and clarification of research problems, and continuous through the writing process (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). The next part gives an enumeration of the data analysis after returning from the field, without indicating this moment as the start of the analysis process. After the fieldwork period, I first transcribed all the interviews and discussions, including the translation form Spanish to English, and typed out my fieldnotes. After that, I organized the data per topic discussed in the interviews and group discussions followed by a separate analysis for each topic. The visual material of the handicrafts was divided according to the different types of material I encountered in the field, and then combined with stories on the interpretation of these ‘materialities’.

2.3 Fieldwork sites Fieldwork was conducted at five different sites, four in Peru (Figure 1) and one in Bolivia (Figure 2). In Peru, I was based in the small town of Ollantaytambo, located between Cusco and Machu Picchu. The town is situated in the Sacred Valley at 2800 meters above sea level. Ollantaytambo and its surrounding region mainly depend on agriculture and include over 30 rural indigenous communities. From here I took trips to the countryside to visit four different communities. Here, groups of women have formed weaving cooperatives that sell handicrafts to tourists and produce orders for FT and sustainable tourism organization, Awamaki. These four cooperatives all produce handicrafts for the international FT market. I choose to visit all of them because they have quite different characters. In Rumira and Puente Inca, the women are knitters and the villages are located close to Ollantaytambo. The other two cooperatives, in Patacancha and Huilloc, are an hour’s drive away into the mountainside. Here the women weave and preserve a more indigenous way of life. The fifth fieldwork site is in El Alto, La Paz, Bolivia. As I shortly visited this region a year earlier in which some contacts were made, I felt it would be an interesting addition to the research to see how a small FT knitting group in a big urban area would differ from my experiences among the cooperatives in rural Peru. The cooperatives in Peru are certified by the US based Fair Trade Federation (FTF), whereas the knitting group in El Alto works, among others, for an organization that is certified by the European based World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO).

Figure 1: The study area with fieldwork sites in Peru

Figure 2: The study area with fieldwork site in Bolivia

2.3.1 Patacancha, Peru Patacancha is a small community of around 250 families located in the mountains above Ollantaytambo, about an hour’s drive away situated at 3,800 meters. Homes are made from adobe bricks with thatched or tin roofs and most families have some electric lighting. Families support themselves mainly by farming Figure 3: Women of the Patacancha weaving cooperative potatoes and raising animals (sheep, lama, (taken by the author at 27/11/14) alpaca, pig), and many of the men work as porters or cooks on the Inca Trail. Most women, including those in the cooperative, are illiterate and only speak Quechua, although this is changing with the younger generation. The weaving cooperative in Patacancha was formed in 2007 with 10 women, in collaboration with the predecessor organization of Awamaki. In the years that followed it expanded to a total of 37 women, with members ranging from 17 to 60 years of age. In 2012, the cooperative produced its first export order.

2.3.2 Huilloc, Peru Like Patacancha, Huilloc is a community located in the mountains, about a 40 minutes’ drive from Ollantaytambo. In this community people maintain an agricultural way of life. Families live in adobe homes with thatched roofs and speak primarily Quechua. Most weavers have limited Spanish language ability. The spinning cooperative in Huilloc consists of ten women and was formed in

2011 with the idea that the knitting cooperative in Figure 4: Women of the Huilloc spinning cooperative Puente Inca and Rumira could source their yarn (taken from the Awamaki website at 02/04/15) directly from another cooperative in the area.

Women of the Huilloc spinning cooperative (taken from the Awamaki website 02/04/2015) 22

2.3.3 Puente Inca, Peru Puente Inca is located just outside of Ollantaytambo. Families in this community mainly speak Spanish and often have work in town, but they still rely heavily on agriculture and are often poorer than those in Ollantaytambo. When in 2010 a severe flooding destroyed most homes in this area, the women of the community approached Awamaki about forming a

knitting cooperative so that they could earn an income to Figure 5: Women from the Puente Inca knitting help them rebuild their homes. Since then they have cooperative (taken from the Awamaki website produced for clients in Peru, the US, UK, and Japan. at 02/04/15) Currently this cooperative consists of 15 women.

2.3.4 Rumira, Peru Rumira is also located close to Ollantaytambo, and similar to Puente Inca, people in this community mainly speak Spanish and work in town. The knitting cooperative in Rumira was initiated not long after the one in Puente Inca. Women in Rumira were already producing knitwear for tourists visiting

Ollantaytambo, but all this was done separately from one Figure 6: Women of the Rumira knitting another and on a very small scale. In 2011 the cooperative cooperative (taken from Awamaki website at 02/04/15) was officially formed, and today consists of 24 women.

2.3.5 El Alto, La Paz, Bolivia Different from the fieldwork sites in Peru, this knitting workshop is located in the fast-growing urban center of El Alto, La Paz, Bolivia. In 2010, the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas recorded a population of 953.2539. Where the cooperative Figure 7: Women of the knitting workshop in EL Alto, La Paz (taken by the author at 26/01/15) members in Peru mainly work from home, in between their daily tasks as mothers and wives, the nine women of the knitting workshop in El Alto work together in a small space situated within the home

9 INE Bolivia, retrieved at 14/04/15.

23 of Fanny and her husband Ricardo. All the knitters are female, ages ranging from begin 20s to their mid-40s. On average, the women work 8 to 9 hours a day, depending on the number of orders. During high season, they work more hours a day to finish an order on time, whereas on less busy days they go home early. Payment is received per item of clothing they make. Next to their collaboration with multiple FT organizations and conventional ones, they own a small shop in downtown La Paz called ‘Moderna Alpaca’ where they sell their own creations.

2.4 Fair Trade Organizations 2.4.1 Awamaki, Ollantaytambo, Peru Awamaki is a FTF certified non-profit organization that works with over 80 artisans from five different communities in the Sacred Valley, Peru. The organization was formed in early 2009 to support a cooperative of ten female weavers in Patacancha. Awamaki’s founders, Kennedy Leavens (USA) and Miguel Galdo (Peru), had worked together at Awamaki’s predecessor organization with the Patacancha weaving cooperative for two years. When the organization collapsed, Miguel and Kennedy formed Awamaki to continue their work with the weavers. Since then the organization has grown to include other programs in economic empowerment, education and skills development, and sustainable community tourism10.

2.4.2 Ayni Bolivia, La Paz, Bolivia Ayni Bolivia is a WFTO certified FTO. They work with 25 small producer workshops, developing and marketing their handicraft, their technical skills, sales and administration and ancestral abilities. In the workshops a variety of techniques are used: hand-knitted alpaca, alpaca knitting with manual machines, woven, crochet or macramé, alpaca woven on handlooms, modeled and glazed ceramic or traditional hand-painted, hand knitted toys, animal wood carvings, embroidery and cotton. It is Ayni Bolivia’s goal to support these producers so that they can move from a vulnerable position to self- sustainability11. Ayni Bolivia is grounded in the Andean Ayni12 by practicing the values of ‘reciprocity’ and ‘complementarity’ to create benefits for everyone involved at Ayni Bolivia. Their work focuses on

10 Awamaki volunteer guide 2014 11 http://aynibolivia.com/shop/blog/ayni-bolivia-quienes-somos/#more-2419 (accessed on 08/08/15). 12 The Andean Ayni is a socioeconomic system that Aymara and Quechua cultures practice by striving to live in harmony and balance for the good of the community. It is based on two key concepts: ‘reciprocity’; the energy that flows between all the forms of existence, and ‘complementarity’; everything is in a complementary relationship towards other things or beings. Exploitation has no room here (Huanacuni Mamani, 2010, p. 35).

24 developing the skills of their producers to achieve economic stability and social and emotional wellbeing. They aim to produce more commercial products that allow a living wage for all the producers. With their FTO they hope to function as an umbrella organization of small producers that will eventually convert to independent organizations within the FT market (V. Rivero, personal communication, January 30th, 2015).

2.5 Access to the research group 2.5.1 Bolivia Before the summer of 2013 I decided to conduct my fieldwork in Bolivia. I had never been to Latin- America and was fascinated by the pictures of people in their colourful clothing and the beautiful snow topped mountains of the Andes. I found a scientific article written by the researcher Tamara Stenn. She has done research on women and FT handicrafts in Bolivia, and set up her own little FT business together with local artisans she came to know during her periods of fieldwork. I send her an email telling her about my research ideas and found an enthusiastic response in my inbox a couple days later. Tamara kindly gave me the names of a couple women working with FT in La Paz. Since I lacked knowledge of Spanish, I looked for an organization where I could take an intensive Spanish language course for a couple weeks. I found one in Cochabamba and decided to start the first seven weeks of my adventure here to practice my Spanish while living with a local family. During these weeks, I contacted a FT organization located in Cochabamba that I found through the WFTO website. This organization is set up by a woman from the United States and when I contacted her, she invited me over for lunch with her and her family. We had a nice talk and she was willing to help me to get in contact with some of the artisans she and her organization works with. Unfortunately, shortly after we met her father turned very ill and she had to leave for the United States for a couple weeks. Arriving in La Paz eight weeks later, I was lucky enough to get into contact with Antonia from ASARBOLSEM and Vania from Ayni Bolivia. I send emails in Spanish to both before I arrived explaining my purpose of visiting Bolivia, what my research was all about and asked whether they could assist me in my project. Vania’s husband, Eduardo, responded and told me to come by the store when I arrived in La Paz. Antonia never responded to my email, so I called her on the number Tamara gave me and I was able to meet with her when I arrived in La Paz.

2.5.2 Peru When searching the internet for FT handicraft organizations in Peru, I quickly stumbled upon the website of Awamaki. Here I found a US based FT organization that works with (indigenous) groups of

25 female weavers and knitters in the Sacred Valley. Awamaki provides them with skills, training and access to markets. Texts on their website such as: “traditional Andean craft is combined with modern designs to create luxury wool and alpaca accessories”13 caught my eye, and after some further reading into the organization, I decided to email them to explain my situation. I asked whether they could help me get into contact with the artisans in the field. I proposed to work as a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) volunteer for a couple months. In the organization people were happy to receive me as a M&E volunteer, but I realized that conducting my own research was perceived as problematic. My requests were answered by Awamaki’s executive producer with the following statement:

“The women we work with come from communities with a tradition of being isolated and not very open to outsiders. It has been very difficult for us to gain their trust. Even today, we have problems getting them to answer surveys and participate in focus groups! They simply don't want to follow the path of linking themselves with a reality beyond their communities, and moreover, this type of enquires and activities are very time consuming for them. Over the years, we have both battled and bargained with their time limitations, so at least they will give us time to complete our own M&E. The first time we tried, the women in Patacancha refused to answer any questions. Today is different and we have overcome this attitude, however, I am still not sure how it will go when we begin to regularly and more intensively collect data” (Executive director Awamaki, 06/08/14).

At first this discouraged me, but then it turned into a feeling of motivation as I would try to overcome these barriers by practicing the ethnographic research skills I developed over the years. An extended report on my experiences in the field can be found under Appendix D.

2.6 Limitations of the research The main limitations of this research arise from the language barriers I encountered in the field. While I knew enough Spanish to conduct interviews with the Spanish speaking artisans, it was hard to connect with those that only spoke Quechua. Even with a translator, these women were very reluctant to answer my questions. This led to a situation where the majority of my data comes from younger, more educated women that speak Spanish. I furthermore choose to spent most of my time in Patacancha as this community houses the largest cooperative, and because I noticed a lot was going on in terms of struggles in ‘the social’ due to collaboration with FT. This resulted in an unequal amount of research for

13 http://www.awamakistore.org/about-1/ (accessed on 02/06/14).

26 each Peruvian fieldwork site. In Bolivia, I only made a brief visit to one FT cooperative which affected the amount of in-depth data I could collect, as well as being limited to one group of artisans.

3. Conceptual Framework

This thesis will take on Appadurai’s (1986) ‘logic of diversion’ in providing an ethnographic examination of commoditization processes of the FT handicraft in Peru and Bolivia. In the first part of this chapter, the ‘logic of diversion’ will be positioned against other theoretical notions of ‘value’, after which we discuss how the concept can be applied in the case of FT handicrafts. The next part revolves around “women’s empowerment” (Kabeer, 1999), a concept much used in the international development discourse, including FT. Both concepts are believed to be helpful in explaining how women’s lives are transforming through FT, both materially and socially.

3.1 Theories of value: Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’ Before diving into Appadurai’s (1986) theory on commodities and the creation of value, this subchapter starts off with a historical background on ‘theories of value’ to position his argument. While references to ‘value’ and ‘theories of value’ are frequently made in anthropological literature, Graeber (2001) argues that it is very difficult to find a systematic ‘theory of value’ anywhere in recent literature. In the first two chapters of his book Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value, he explains how this situation came to be, and how this led to current directions in exchange theory. In the past, the word ‘value’ has been used in social theory in the following ways:

1. ‘value’ in the sociological sense, that is, conceptions of what is ultimately good, proper, or desirable in human life 2. ‘value’ in the economic sense: the degree to which objects are desired, particularly, as measured by how much others are willing to give up to get them 3. ‘value’ in the linguistic sense, which refers to ‘meaningful difference’

In the 1960s the main arguments were formed between Formalists and Substantivists. The latter starts by looking at society in its totality, to be left with trying to explain how people are motivated to reproduce society. Whereas the former starts by looking at individual desires and end up being unable to explain why people choose to maximize some things and not others. By the 1970s, the great debate was between Structuralists and Marxists, since both introduced radically different perspectives into anthropology. Structuralism was built on the notion that nothing can be analyzed in isolation; in order to understand any one object, one must first identify some kind of total system. The point of analysis was always to discover the hidden code, or symbolic system, which tied everything together. The dilemma

28 of Structuralism has been how to move from understanding people’s passive contemplation of the world, to their active participation in it (2001, pp. 12, 14). The most important thing Marxist approaches introduced was a focus on production. From a Marxist perspective, both Formalists and Substantivists had entirely missed the point, because all their debates had been about distribution and exchange. To understand a society, they argued, one must understand how it continues to exist—or, as they put it, “reproduces itself”—by endless creative activity. Where a functionalist begins with a notion of ‘society’, and then ask how that society manages to hold itself together. A Marxist starts by asking how what we call ‘society’ is constantly being re-created through various sorts of productive action, and how a society’s most basic forms of exploitation and inequality are thus rooted in the social relations through which people do so (Graeber, 2001, p. 24). Where ‘60s debates were mainly about exchange and ‘70s ones about production; in the ‘80s the focus shifted to consumption (Graeber, 2001, p. 26). This same period had seen the emergence of new approaches to exchange. The essay that has the most influence on the way anthropologists nowadays talk about value, is Appadurai’s “Commodities and the Politics of Value” (1986). The importance of Appadurai’s essay is ascribed to the liberating effect it had on other scholars by providing a way to examine how objects can move back and forth between different cultural worlds and thus to ask a whole new series of questions about colonialism, tourism, collecting, trade, and so on (Graeber, 2001, p. 33). Appadurai (1986) begins by talking about the term ‘commodity’, which Marx, among others, applied to objects produced to be sold in a commercial market. This emphasis on production, he notes, arises from Marx’s belief that value arises from human labor; the problem with this formulation, though, is that it makes commodities essentially a capitalist phenomenon, typical of some societies and not others. Anthropologists would do better, he suggests, to forget Marx’s approach entirely and look instead to the one developed by Georg Simmel (Graeber, 2001). Value, according to Simmel, is not rooted in human labor, nor does its existence depend on any larger social system. Rather, it arises from exchange and is therefore purely an effect of individual desire. The value of an object is the degree to which a buyer wants it. Like Marx, Simmel was thinking mainly of how things work in a market economy. But Appadurai insists that, unlike Marx’s, his model can be applied even where formal markets don’t exist. In every society, there is at least some form of exchange. Therefore, there’s no reason to think of “commoditization” as a purely capitalist phenomenon. Any object becomes a commodity when one thinks of it primarily as something one could acquire in exchange for something else, or that one would be willing to give up in order to get something one desires more (1986, p. 13).

Rather than to emphasize how particular kinds of objects are either gifts or commodities to be explored in their own spheres of exchange, Appadurai (1986) started looking at how objects flowed between them as objects move in and out of the commodity state. By doing this he surpassed the contrast between ‘gifts’ and ‘commodities’ in earlier anthropological writing which had the tendency to romanticize small scale societies and marginalize their calculative features, and that didn’t acknowledge that capitalist societies, too, operate according to cultural designs (ibid.). So, when we follow Appadurai (1986) in our focus on processes of commoditization of FT handicrafts in Peru and Bolivia, handicrafts should not be viewed as ‘static’ commodities that only exist under capitalist conditions and whose valuation is based on the ‘law of supply and demand’. Rather, we should focus on their ‘social lives’ as they move from production to consumption, get ‘diverted’ from their pathways, and in this process are infused with multiple social, cultural and economic values. Kopytoff (1986) explains that during this process objects accumulate a specific biography, or set of biographies. Commodities are not only produced materially as things, but are also culturally marked as being a certain kind of thing (ibid.). Therefore, the same thing may be treated as a commodity at one time and not at another. Or the same things may even, at the same time, be seen as a commodity by one person and as something else by another. Such shifts and differences in whether and when a thing is a commodity reveal the multiplicity of values that stand behind the objective economy of visible transactions. Kopytoff (1986) therefore argues that it is crucial to relate the life of things, in one way or another, to the ways in which people, in different social contexts, give meaning to them (ibid.). Thus, by focussing on people’s subjective assessment of things, we can keep view of ‘the social’ in an era of rapid commercialization where most things are valued for their objective attributes (Spooner, 1986).

3.2 Women’s empowerment The current discourse on gender and value chains, as summarized by Laven and Verhart (2011), states the economic empowerment of women as the central issue. Especially with regard to identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives (UNDP, 2010). Kabeer (1999) defines empowerment as a process by which those who have been denied power gain power, especially in their ability to make strategic life choices. Strategic life choices include where to live, whether and whom to marry, whether to have children, freedom of movement and association, and so on. These include increased choice, recognition and voice, rights, justice, independent decision making and dignity (Esplen & Brody, 2007; Marshall et al., 2006). For this reason it is not sufficient to only assess women’s access to and control over conventional economic resources, but also necessary

30 to grasp the complexity of social norms, roles and responsibilities that structure women’s relationships to work and their sense of self-worth and well-being more broadly (Esplen & Brody, 2007). The concept of empowerment can be explored through three interrelated dimensions: agency, resources and achievements. Here, agency represents the processes by which choices are made and put into effect; a central aspect of empowerment. Resources then are needed for people to exercise their agency, and achievements refer to the outcomes of agency. Agency in relation to empowerment implies not only actively exercising choice, but also doing this in a way that challenges existing power relations. A process of empowerment usually begins from within by questioning beliefs and values that legitimize inequality. It includes not just decision making processes, or other forms of observable action, but especially the meaning, motivation, and purpose that individuals bring to their actions; their sense of agency. Empowerment is rooted in how people view themselves with regard to their sense of self- worthiness, which is very much related to how they are seen by those around them, and society as a whole (Kabeer, 2005). Resources include not only material resources in the more conventional economic sense, but also the various human and social resources which enhance the ability to exercise choice (Kabeer, 1999). Resources are distributed through the various institutional relationships in a society (Kabeer, 2005). Institutions are defined both as formal organizations, as well as the wider set of informal norms and practices that shape behavior (Neilson & Pritchard, 2009). In these institutions, certain actors have a privileged position over others when it comes to the interpretation of rules, norms and conventions, as well as how they are put into action. The way in which resources are distributed therefore depends on the ability to define priorities and enforce claims, moreover, it defines the terms upon which resources are made available. Resources and agency make up people’s capabilities; their potential for living the lives they want. Thus, the term achievement refers to the extent to which this potential is realized (Kabeer, 2005). By using Kabeer’s notion of empowerment in examining the social implications of FT on female handicraft producers, this thesis aims to move beyond measurements that are limited to economic resources, as it seeks to expose the underlying social complexities that determine women’s ability to exercise their agency.

4. Fair Trade and handicraft in Peru & Bolivia

In 1985, Peru first passed the Law for Promoting Crafts (Ley de Promoción Artesanal), which authorized national expenditures to promote crafts, particularly in relation to tourism. Crafts were promoted as a source of income, both for people in rural areas, as well as for migrants in Peruvian cities (Zorn, 2004, p. 92). More than 25 years later, Evo Morales implemented a similar law to promote and develop crafts (Ley de promoción y desarrollo artesanal) in Bolivia. These laws represent the shift towards producing textiles for sale in addition to family use or barter (Nash, 1993, pp. 1, 2), which led to an initiation of crafts cooperatives set up by national and foreign governments and NGO’s, including FT (Zorn, 2004, p. 106). The two main FT handicrafts labeling organizations active in Peru and Bolivia are the European based WFTO and the US based FTF. The first part of this chapter will describe the period leading up to the creation of FT certification labels, after which we turn to a historical background of these FT labelling organizations, including their intentions in terms of gender equality, cultural preservation, cooperation and economic improvement. The next part dives into the Andean textile tradition, and is followed by an examination of FTs role in presenting this picture on a global scale.

4.1 Changes in the Fair Trade arena Until the late 1980s, FTOs have enjoyed strong growth among committed consumers, yet by the end of the decade the ‘limits’ of the FTO market had become apparent and began to displace the traditionally non-commercial FTOs (Low & Davenport, 2005). FTOs had continued to focus entirely on the producer rather than on consumers, which proved to be unsustainable for widening the market (Nicholls & Opal, 2005). This led to rapid changes in the FT movement, transforming its policy spaces in the form of new actors such as corporate retailers, standard-setting agencies, as well as a growing number of producer cooperatives, and more strategic advocacy networks. The introduction of FT certification through standards and labeling, which began with Max Havelaar in 1988, is seen as critical (Tallontire, 2009). Fairtrade-labelled food products—governed by Fairtrade International (FLO)—emerged and were positioned as ‘premium quality’ rather than ‘ethically driven’, marking a shift in the movement’s traditional message and approach to attracting consumers (Nicholls & Opal, 2005). FTOs that sell handicrafts (especially in Europe) did not reposition themselves in a similar fashion, relying instead on consumers’ humanitarian sensibility. While sales remain small in global terms, FLOs 2013-14 annual report (2014) states that it witnessed strong continued growth as consumer sales of Fairtrade certified products reached €5.5 billion worldwide in 2013. The FT craft market however currently represents a declining percentage of overall FT sales. This trend marks a historical shift in the make-up of European FT retail sales; 10 years ago, craft and textiles enjoyed a sales/value ratio of 80% compared to 20% for

32 food. Today these figures have practically reversed, with handicrafts—and the artisans who make them— becoming increasingly marginal in European FTOs (Krier, 2007; Nicholls & Opal, 2005). The aforementioned changes in power dynamics within the FT movement led to debate over whether FT policy spaces would be embodied by corporate actors in ways that impose rules and power relations that are detrimental to the transformative potential of FT for producers in the south (Renard, 2005). While its form of entrepreneurial development has enjoyed widespread success in Northern consumer markets, there is growing evidence that clear discrepancies exist between the discourse of ‘dialogue, transparency and respect’ and conditions that ‘beneficiaries’ experience at the point of production (Dolan, 2010). When it comes to the certification of handicrafts, the FT movement is criticized for “operating in an economy of desire, feeding a Western demand for the pre-modern, the ‘authentic’, and the’ natural’ that is constructed and created through a (neo)colonial relationship” (Canessa, 2012). FTOs frequently market artisanal products through visual images of “exotic Others” (Wilson 2010: 178), that point to the cultural distinctiveness between producer and consumer. They play to ethically conscious consumers that care for this idea of ‘the authentic’ and want to help protect handicraft producers from being overtaken by neoliberal practices (Wilson, 2010).

4.2 Fair Trade handicraft certification labels While European ‘Fair Trade’ is often portrayed as a single phenomenon, it is in fact expressed in two primary forms: a ‘product certification label’ (figure 8) and an ‘organizational mark’ (figure 9). The ‘Fairtrade’ product certification and labeling system is governed by the worldwide standard-setting and certification organization for labelled Fairtrade, Figure 9: Logo Fairtrade Figure 8: Logo WFTO known as the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations label mark International (FLO). FLO’s mission is to “improve the position of the poor and disadvantaged producers in the developing world, by setting the Fairtrade standards and by creating a framework that enables trade to take place at conditions respecting their interest”14. The World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) mark on the other hand distinguishes those organizations that demonstrate a “100% commitment to Fair Trade in all their business activities”15. Fair

14 http://www.fairtrade.net/about-fairtrade/our-vision.html (accessed on 02/06/15) 15 http://www.wfto.com/ (accessed on 02/06/15)

Trade Organizations (FTOs) include producer organizations and export marketing organizations in the South as well as FT importers and retailers in the North (Hutchens, 2010, p. 450). Where the product certification label (FLO) focuses on food items, the organizational mark (WFTO) certifies organizations that promote non-food, mainly artisanal, FT items. Similar to the WFTO in Europe, the US houses the Fair Trade Federation (FTF) (figure 10), a trade association of retailers, wholesalers and producer organizations Figure 10: Logo FTF whose mission is to expand the FT market in North America (Stenn, 2012). Due to its European origin, the volume of FT retail sales in Europe is eight times that in the US (Grimes, 2000, p. 15).

4.2.1 World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO)

In the 1970s multiple FLOs had been meeting informally Box 1: WFTO principles every few years to talk about issues that concerned 1. Creating opportunities for economically them. At the Berlin Conference in 1987, it was decided disadvantaged producers they needed something more formal, and a steering 2. Transparency and accountability committee was set up to plan for the creation of a 3. Fair trading practices 4. Payment of a fair price Federation for Alternative Trade. They worked on a draft 5. Ensuring no child labor and forced labor of a constitution which was presented to 38 FLOs during 6. Commitment to non-discrimination, gender equity and women’s economic a meeting in Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherlands in empowerment, and freedom of May 1989. The steering committee envisaged a association federation of northern FLOs. On the 12th of May 1989, 7. Ensuring good working conditions 8. Providing capacity building an executive committee was elected and the 9. Promoting fair trade International Federation of Alternative Trade (IFAT) was 10. Respect for the environment born. At the 1991 Conference in Kilkenny, Ireland, it was (Retrieved from WFTO website in April 2015) agreed that producer organizations should be invited to join IFAT as full members. During a Conference in 1995, membership grew to 87 and it was reported that handicraft sales were declining whereas a rise was seen in the sale of coffee and other food and beverages. By 1998 IFAT counted 111 members and 45 observers. “IFAT brings people together in partnership, as equals, to discuss Fair Trade issues, to share experiences, to learn from each other, and to get to know each other better,” stated the annual report.

After the formation of FINE in 1998, the following definition of Fair Trade was adopted:

“Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers, especially in the South. Fair Trade Organizations (backed by consumers) are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade”16

By 2002 membership had grown to 180 organizations in 55 countries. By 2006 there were nearly 300 IFAT members. IFAT Europe was established and regional meetings held. A survey was conducted on the need for a product label for crafts. At its 2008 AGM held in Sri Lanka IFAT agreed a new name – World Fair Trade organization (WFTO) – to reflect the breadth and impact of the organization. It also adopted a new mission statement:

“WFTO aims to improve the livelihoods of marginalized producers and workers, especially in the South. WFTO aims to change unfair structures of international trade, mainly by means of Fair Trade, to improve and co- ordinate the cooperation of its member organizations and to promote the interests of and provide services to its member organizations and individuals”17

Following the 2009 Conference in Nepal the economic crisis affected many WFTO members with purchase orders falling by as much as 40% for many members in the South. Membership grew to 441. In 2010 WFTO revised its mission and vision once more:

“Vision: WFTO, the World Fair Trade organization, has a vision of a world in which trade structures and practices have been transformed to work in favor of the poor and promote sustainable development and justice”

“Mission: WFTO’s mission is to enable producers to improve their livelihoods and communities through Fair Trade. WFTO will be the global network and advocate for Fair Trade, ensuring producer voices are heard. The interests of producers, especially small farmers and artisans,

16 http://wfto.com/about-us/history-wfto (accessed on 05/04/15) 17 http://wfto.com/about-us/history-wfto (accessed on 05/04/15)

should be the main focus in all the policies, governance, structures and decision-making within the WFTO”18

Notable, at the Rio AGM in 2013, the WFTO product label was introduced, and the organization took on a gender policy. In WFTO’s Guarantee System Handbook (2014)19 a clear policy and plan is outlined to promote gender equality that ensures that both men and women have the resources they need to be productive and obtain the ability to influence the wider policy, regulatory and institutional environment that shapes their livelihoods. Gender equity is promoted through: non-discrimination, equal pay and freedom of association. Box 1 outlines the other nine principles WFTO strives to achieve. Currently, the WFTO has over 370 member organizations and 40 individual associates from more than 70 countries spread across five continents with elected global and regional boards that seek to create market access through the activities of policy, advocacy, campaigning, marketing and monitoring. As a global network, WFTO is supported by five regional branches located in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Pacific (including North America and Oceania) through their respective offices. In Peru, there are a total of ten WFTO certified producer and export marketing organizations. In Bolivia, there are four20. Europe counts a total of 53 WFTO certified retail and import organizations. The office in Culemborg, the Netherlands, coordinates the activities of WFTO worldwide. Its Southern membership now out- represents Northern members (accounting for 62% of members), and Asia is the largest member in the South (49%). The majority of members are involved in the Box 2: FTF Principles production, sale and/or export of craft items, as well as 1. Create opportunities for textiles, musical instruments and toys (Hutchens, 2010, p. economically and socially 454). marginalized producers 2. Develop transparent and

accountable relationships 4.2.2 Fair Trade Federation (FTF) 3. Build capacity 4. Promote fair trade The alternative trade movement in North America originated 5. Pay promptly and fairly in the late 1940s and 1950s with the founding of Mennonite- 6. Support safe and empowering working conditions and Brethren-affiliated businesses. These church 7. Ensure the rights of children organizations began marketing their products from artisan 8. Cultivate environmental groups worldwide through their congregations, who stewardship 9. Respect cultural identity established the first network of FT stores, organized local (Retrieved from FTF website in April 2015)

18 http://wfto.com/about-us/history-wfto (accessed on 05/04/15) 19 http://old.wfto.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2005&Itemid=413 (accessed on 12/08/15) 20 http://wfto.com/find-supplier (accessed on 15/08/15)

36 fundraisers and later produced a retail mail-order catalog. By marketing handmade crafts, the church groups hoped to create a direct link between producers and consumers through the crafts and stories of artisans’ lives21. Over the next twenty years, these groups slowly expanded their marketing efforts and sales, still reaching a limited audience. In the 1970s, other FT stores arose, but it wasn’t until the next decade that the movement would receive widespread attention. In the 1980s, each of the separate, but like-minded, Fair Traders in the US and Canada established annual conferences to discuss marketing and consumer education strategies, and to host representatives from producer groups. At the 1992 conference, participants voted to formalize the organization (Grimes, 2000, pp. 12, 13). In 1994, the group incorporated formally as the North American Alternative Trade Organization (NAATO), and the following year changed its name to the Fair Trade Federation. Since then, FTF has focused on supporting fully committed businesses to expand markets for artisans and farmers around the world. The federation has been an active member of the WFTO for many years. As of January 1998, the FTF had 85 trade members and was supported by 64 friend or allied members. The FTF principles (box 2) have been created using the global principles of the WFTO as their foundation. The FTF and the WFTO recognize and uphold each other’s principles, and work together as allied organizations to promote greater equity in international trade22. The North American FTF has had the benefit of communicating with members of the larger and more experienced FT movement in Europe (Grimes, 2000, p. 15). In contract to WFTO, FTF does not certify producer and export organizations, but solemnly retail and import organizations that are based in the US and Canada, 50 of which work with

23 producers in Latin America . Figure 11: Chullos on display at the CTTC (taken by the author at 30/11/14) 4.3 Handicraft in Peru and Bolivia Walking at any crafts market in Peru or Bolivia, you will be overwhelmed by the number of textiles that are on display. Most of the Andean textiles are woven. Knitting and crochet are techniques introduced by the Spanish, and historically seen as less important. Knitting used to be quite popular among the

21 https://www.fairtradefederation.org/history-of-fair-trade-in-the-united-states/ (accessed on 05/04/15) 22 https://www.fairtradefederation.org/history-of-fair-trade-in-the-united-states/ (accessed on 05/04/15) 23 https://www.fairtradefederation.org/findmembers/ (accessed on 15/08/15)

lower classes, probably out of necessity. “The Aymara indigenous and mestizo women knit the hats for their babies because they need to protect them from the horrible cold and wind in the highlands, as they live at more than 4000 meters above sea level”24. Interestingly, knitting has not always been relegated to ‘women’s work’, it is traditionally the men who knit in the Andes. “In Peru and Bolivia, knitting is predominantly men’s work. Boys often make their own chullos, the distinctive pointed cap with earflaps (figure 11), and by the time they are adolescents they are very skilled and improvise their own color and patterning” (Lecount, 1990, p. 134). Many argue that the reason for knitting to have become so closely associated with domesticity and femininity is the benefits found in the commercialization of knitting.

Figure 12: Woman from Patacancha This resulted in the mass production of knitted products made by using a backstrap loom (taken by the man, while hand-knitting became more of a hobby performed by author at 8/11/14) women (Zorn, 2004). When it comes to the practice of weaving in the Andes, both men and women do it, but due to gendered divisions of labor in most of Peru and Bolivia, women weave on the Andean-type loom (figure 12), whereas men work on the more mechanized European type treadle loom (figure 13) (Zorn 2004: 59, 60), or stopped weaving at all. In my case studies, I found that men did not weave or knit (anymore). During my interview with Felicitas, her husband walked in and joined our conversation. I explained to him that when I visited the Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco (CTTC), I spoke with a man from Pisac, another village located in the Sacred Valley, who was giving a weaving demonstration in the store and who told me that in his community a lot of men weave. I asked the husband if the men in Patacancha know how to Figure 13: Man working on a treadle loom in Guatamala (taken from weave. He starts laughing and tells me that some do, but the kickstarter website at 16/11/16) majority doesn’t.

“Here for example a lot of men work on the fields or on the Inca trail as porter or cook, so they are away often. When they get back they still

24 http://www.aynibolivia.com/fair.trade/en/content/32-hand-knitted-alpaca (accessed on 28/08/15)

help with spinning sometimes or other things. But that is how it is for communities like Patacancha and Huilloc, it is mainly the women that do the work” (10/01/15)

In highland weaving communities, such as Huilloc and Patacancha, production is usually fit in time not spend on agriculture and household responsibilities. Although some phases of traditional textile production, such as spinning the fleece, can be done while walking to and from the field or while watching the animals. Spinning begins at an early age and continuous throughout life, a spinner makes yarn anytime their hands are free. Spinning accounts for most time required for textile production. The drop spindle (puska) (figure 14) is used to make fine or thick yarns (Zorn, 2004, p. 58).

“Every time I visited the cooperatives in Huilloc and Patacancha, women, and sometimes men, were Figure 14: Woman from Patacancha walking the streets while spinning yarn. During working the pushka (taken by the meetings and interviews as well, many women author at 8/11/14) would spin while talking or listening. They always carry a drop spindle and fleece with them. My first weaving lesson started with an explanation of the spinning technique. I tried to do it, but I can assure you, it is much harder than they make it seem” (observations by author, 2014/2015)

In contrast to Patacancha and Huilloc, the knitters in Rumira and Puente Inca don’t take part in the spinning and dying process of the wool (anymore). They buy wool for own use at the market, and receive wool for international orders from the FT organization (produced by their other cooperatives). Nevertheless, production similarly takes place in between

Figure 15: Fanny working on a manual household chores and other jobs. In El Alto, Bolivia, the wool knitting machine (taken by the author at is bought in a shop that specializes in naturally dyed alpaca 27/01/15) wool. Rather than knitting ‘in between things’, these women are ‘professional knitters’ that spend their days producing textiles on manual knitting machines (figure 15).

Andean weavers have until recently always preferred fiber from two domesticated species, llama and alpaca, from hybrid mixes, and from the wild vicuna, a threatened species whose wool is unavailable for local weavers at the moment (Zorn, 2004, p. 59). Sheep wool was introduced by the Spanish in the 16th century and largely replaced the use of native alpaca and llama fibers in some areas. Llama fiber is generally coarser than alpaca and therefore primarily used to make ropes and sacks. Vicuna fiber is extremely soft and strong, but because there are so few vicunas today, this fiber is not available to weavers. Alpaca fiber is the primary material used in many communities and it is prized for its softness and variety of colors25. Acquiring alpaca wool became difficult after the mid-1950s, due to fluctuations in world interest in Alpaca fiber. This led to higher prices paid to Peruvian multinational wool industries of which little found its way to local weavers. Another problem described by Zorn (2004) is that environmental factors and overpopulation have reduced supplies of natural dyestuffs. The synthetic dyes in Peru are very poor, and better suited to dye sheep wool than alpaca fiber. Zorn (2004) argues that these factors have pushed Peruvian weavers into using more sheep wool, more factory spun wool, and more factory made synthetic yarn (2004, p. 59). To conclude it can be stated that the creation of textiles, especially woven textiles, have a long history in the Andes. Woven textiles performed many functions within society and were therefore of great value in Andean society. Knitting was introduced only much later by the Spanish and was mainly practiced out of necessity. Interestingly, in both weaving and knitting practices, men used to play a big role, whereas today these practices are found to be mainly ascribed to women. This is largely due to processes of globalization that led to commercialization of handicrafts and an increase in tourism. As witnessed in Peru, men are now often found to work in tourism or other industries, while women combine their household chores with weaving and knitting.

4.4 Fair Trade’s global representation of handicraft production The marketing of FT handicrafts is often grounded in a representation of ‘distinctiveness’ and ‘authenticity’ in printed stories and images. Tourists and the tourism industry add more ideas and values about ‘Indianness’, as they seek to observe and participate in different, often distant cultures (Canessa, 2012), and look for the kind of places that are “remote, beautiful and populated by friendly native people practicing interesting customs” (Zorn, 2004, p. 162). Here, the notion of ‘authenticity’ is central to the validation of FT’s work in the handicraft sector, as the determination of value involves at least an implicit assessment of a products’ ‘authenticity’, which goes beyond the simple retailing of the

25 http://www.textilescusco.org/index.php/about-andean-textiles/ (accessed on 02/09/15)

40 objective material attributes of the artifact, but rather taps into subjective notions of value as it relies on the interpretation of genuineness and our desire for it (Spooner, 1986). Next to positioning themselves as ‘preservers of ethnic cultures and traditional practices’, FT aims to create a ‘virtual space’ where consumers can make a connection with the producers behind the products they buy. It can be questioned however to what extent these ‘global’ images are actual representations of ‘local’ experiences, and how they might obscure the existence of “multifarious life worlds and realities” (Fisher, 2009, p. 31). In the months before and during my fieldwork in Peru and Bolivia, I looked for this type of ‘imaging’ on the websites of multiple FT handicraft organizations, in flyers that market tours to ‘indigenous communities’, and in local stores that sell FT handicrafts. In all cases, I found that a connection to ‘ancient’ or ‘authentic’ values is a central part of the message. On the website of Ayni Bolivia for example, information about Bolivian textiles is described as follows:

“The traditional indigenous Aymara Textiles are unique and represent the living culture of the Bolivian Andes. The Indian women use a traditional technique learned from their grandmothers. The spinning, dyeing and weaving of each textile is handmade and all are different, as each reflects the inspiration of the weaver at a given time”26

FT and sustainable tourism organization Awamaki promotes their tours with statements such as:

“Discover ancient weaving traditions and indigenous culture in the Andes” and “explore traditional Andean village life”27. Textiles are connected to their producer by commenting that: “No textile in the Awamaki Lab collection is the same, and each weaver tells a personal story through her craft”28

The producers are furthermore framed by an idyllic rural backdrop such as the one taken of weavers in Patacancha (figure 16), to sanitize the socio-economic conditions of producer communities, and reinforcing the notion that FT is addressing core problems producers face (Wilson, 2010). This type of producer profiling, is a central part of FT marketing, as it provides potential customers with a sense of personal connection with the producer and aims to illustrate that the social and economic goals of FT are being met (M'Closkey, 2010). While FT marketing appears informational, it rather taps into feelings

26 http://www.aynibolivia.com/fair.trade/en/content/28-native-textiles (accessed on 28/08/15) 27 http://awamaki.org/visit/community-visits/ (accessed on 16/08/15) 28 http://www.awamakistore.org/ (accessed on 01/09/15)

41 of personal, political and economic alienation according to Doane (2010). It is a fantasy of community and place in a displaced context. In a highly decentralized industrial world, were the connections between producers, products and consumers are obscured, a ‘virtual space’ is created where FT promises a direct connection between them (ibid.). These producer profiles furthermore serve to establish the authenticity of the products (and therefore the FT organizations) by linking them to images of producers, and the cultural traditions they are said to represent. (Wilson, 2010). According to Spooner (1986) this desire for authenticity motivates us to reconstruct the context in which an object is made when the original meaning of decorative elements might have largely been forgotten by the people who make them. He argues that the ‘real thing’ is not simply a handicraft, it is made by particular individuals, from special handcrafted materials, in particular social, cultural and environmental conditions, with motifs and designs learned from earlier generations (ibid.). Creating ‘authentic images’ through marketing mechanisms influences how consumers and producers (re)value FT handicrafts. To start our journey beyond this global imagery and find what is happening at the local level, the next sub-chapter discusses producers’ reflections on the importance of weaving and knitting, added with my observations and those Figure 16: Weavers in Patacancha (taken from the Awamaki website at 17/11/16) from professionals in the field.

4.5 Local significance of handicraft production The four different communities to which I made field visits in Peru were not, or only on a very small scale, selling their handicrafts to tourists before they connected to FT organization Awamaki. In a short time, these handicrafts have gone from objects with use and exchange value, to commodities that provide them with a new source of income. Where the cooperatives in Peru have made this connection only quite recently, in Bolivia, the knitting group has already established a longer working relationship with FTOs and other commercial trade organizations. Female weavers often start learning to make woven textiles when they are children by observing their parents. They go through many stages to learn the technology, aesthetic and semiotic codes, and while doing this they learn about their culture and society (Zorn, 2004, p. 60). When asked about their valuation of textiles and the process of making them, all interviewed women in Patacancha mentioned its importance as part of their cultural heritage:

“Weaving is important for me because I like doing it, I like the animals. It is part of my culture. My grandparents already did it a long time ago. My mother taught me how to weave when I was 7 years old” (Helena 11/01/15)

“Weaving is important for me because we continue the tradition of our ancestors” (Jesusa 27/11/14)

“Weaving is important for me because my ancestors have always done it. It is part of our cultural traditions”. My grandmother wove as well, she made polleras of sheep wool”. When I asked her whether she weaves more than her grandmother used to do, she responded with “yes, yes, to sell, my grandmother did not sell her textiles, she just wove for herself and her family”. Later, when her husband walks in and joins us, I ask him about his poncho and what it means to him. He starts to explain all the pallay on the poncho and says “for me it is good, for me it is a pride, because all that exists here is found on the poncho” (Felicitas & husband 10/01/15)

During the interview with Jesusa, Hermenegilde and Doris I asked: “when you make textiles for yourself, I expect this to have a certain value for you because as you explained, it is part your culture, traditions and ancestry. Do you feel you attach a similar kind of value to the textiles you make with the purpose of selling?” This question was met with confusion by all the women, after reformulating it a couple times, Jesusa answered with:

“We work with our “pensamiento” (“thought”); we include traditional elements in the textiles that are not for ourselves. I do not know if everyone feels it like this, but everyone needs to make her own decision about it” (27/11/14).

In Huillic the women similarly linked the value of weaving to their cultural heritage, and here they also mentioned that weaving is important for them because their textiles can be sold (25/11/14). While the act of knitting doesn’t share the same history as that of weaving, this as well is valued for its link to earlier generations. In Puente Inca for example, Silvia tells me that she used to watch her mother knit when she was younger and would practice in her free time. Before working with Awamaki she only made knitwear for her family and friends. She doesn’t dislike adopting her products to Western aesthetical preferences because for her this means she can sell more and let the world know about Peruvian weaving traditions, which she feels proud about. She values the economic benefits as well, as she is now able to pay for her children’s education, buy a higher variety of food and safe money for her

43 own and her children’s future (20/11/14). For Nadia, knitting provides her with a link to her cultural heritage as well:

“Before, my grandmother would bring sheep’s wool from the highland communities and wash it, and after that she would put it to dry and then spin the yarn. That is how they used to do it. So I used to watch my grandmother and mother while they would be doing this, and I always liked knitting myself”. When asking about the importance of the economic value of knitting, she says there is an economic value as well of course. I ask her how she values the economic versus the cultural, for her the economic value is ultimately more important: “because when you sell you earn money, but if you knit for yourself and do not sell, you don’t earn anything. The one part is making money and the other part is when you make it for yourself” (08/01/15).

When I asked Ivy how she thinks the women feel about making orders for Awamaki, in terms of cultural and economic value, she responds with:

“in my experience they are only interested in the money when they come into the office to bring their textiles” (05/11/14).

Similar observations were made by Mercedes:

“In all the cooperatives the economic value of making textiles is most important for the women. When they realize that what they do is worthy, that it can serve the purpose of making money, they see it as an advantage, as an opportunity” (16/01/15).

I asked Mercedes how she thinks the women experience their encounter with tourists; mainly in an economical sense, or whether is it also a way for them to inform other people about their culture and traditions (as the tour is marketed).

”For me, it is a way for them to earn money. Also because of their limitation of not being able to read or write and most are unable to speak Spanish. They do not have a lot of confidence to try and communicate with tourists, to make friends. Within all the families it is seen as a means to earn money” (16/01/15).

Helena affirms this statement by telling me that:

“tourism is important because of the income” (11/01/15).

During my first weekend in Patacancha I took part in a “Weaving Immersion weekend”29 and experienced how it was to be a tourist visiting the community:

“Together with another volunteer I stayed at Cristina’s house, a stiff walk uphill. The house was very basic; adobe walls and dried mud on the ground. The small kitchen/living room had a table, cuys that ran around the place, and a small stove on the floor. Cristina lives here together with her husband and three children. Her oldest daughter (19) is going to school in Urubamba and comes back every weekend. Her son is 14 years old and goes to school in Patacancha, the same goes for her youngest daughter (7). During our first lunch Cristina was not home and her oldest daughter served us potato soup. She sat in the kitchen with an older lady that came to visit the house. While they were eating in the kitchen behind a small wall, we were eating at a table on the other side of it. I felt as if I was treated like a guest in a hotel, there was a lot of distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ even though the daughter spoke good Spanish and we tried to make contact with her. While this changed a little over the weekend, before we left two days later Cristina asked us to have a look at textiles she made, to see if we wanted to buy some. This brought me straight back to feeling like an outsider, a tourist valued for her money” (observation by author 8/11/15 to 10/11/15).

The possibility to earn money was found to be the main reason for women to become part of the cooperative:

“We started to work for the cooperative because of needs within our households; we did not have enough money. We wanted to help our husbands and for that reason we became part of the cooperative. Being part of the cooperative we can help our husband bring in food for the children, when our children want to eat, we buy things for them” (Doris 27/11/14). “And also, working for the cooperative gives us a little income so that we can help out our husbands to buy things, and today it is necessary for children’s education to increase as well. Today, more

29 This is one out of four tours Awamaki organizes to Patacancha and is described as follows: “Explore traditional Andean village life; visit the family farming fields and hike to glacial lakes. Try your hand at backstrap weaving techniques with lessons from one of Awamaki’s weavers. Stay with a Quechua family in their home three days, two nights” (http://awamaki.org/visit/community-visits/ accessed on 02/09/15)

children are in school in the cities and we have to pay for the alimentation” (Jesusa 27/11/14).

“Before I didn’t work, and now I am able to earn money and contribute to the household income” (Felicitas 10/01/15).

In Fanny’s knitting group in El Alto, the situation is different. None of her ancestors used to knit, and neither do her children. Instead of learning the skill from her mother, she learned it during her time as a factory worker.

“Me and some of the other women that work here learned to knit at a clothing factory called ‘Wilma’s’. First I was taught by hand, after that with the machine. Knitting by hand takes a long time. It is much more labor intensive than the machine. It is beautiful, but hard. With the machine it can take a lot of time too, depending on the design. It is with your hands that you are creating the design, by constantly shifting the wool and then going over it with the machine. But there are easier and more advanced designs” (27/01/15)

When I asked Fanny about the value she attaches to her work and the products she makes, she tells me that:

“My work is very important for me and has a lot of value. Both social, cultural and economical, because when we knit, it gives us a source of income. Knitting has a lot of value for me. Honestly I never thought that I would be here, it was not easy for us. How to do it, how to make what people like, because when a person is pleased with the product, it inspires you to continue, you gain more work and money. It has a lot of value” (27/01/15)

What I noticed when observing Fanny, is that she handled the products with a lot of care, everything needed to be perfect. After finishing a product, she would inspect every small detail and then wash it by hand and lay it out to dry before dropping it off at the store. She clearly took pride in her work and the textiles were precious to her, they were more to her than commodities with a monetary value. In Patacancha and Huilloc, many women do not consciously choose to weave, but rather do so because it is rooted in their way of life and because it lies in the line of expectation. Here the textiles women make for themselves and their family members reflect a link to their ancestors and tells us something about their preference of colors, symbols, and their skill as an artisan. These textiles play a central role in their lives as mother and wife, and as part of a community. Even though it wasn’t

46 communicated to me in such a way, I felt that a clear divide existed between textiles for own use and those for sale. As will become more clear in the next part on the materiality of the textiles, I found that even though the items for sale are produced by the same hands, they serve a different purpose and are therefore invested with different values. While the knitters in Rumira and Puente Inca also value the knitting process due to its link with older generations, it clearly plays a less central role in their lives. Here, the people do not wear ‘traditional clothing’, neither do they make a lot of their own clothing (anymore) ever since they can buy all they need at the market. When it comes to the significance of handicraft production, all Peruvian women mentioned its link to their ancestral history. Most of them learned the skills from their mothers and have images of their grandmothers doing the same things they are doing now. At the same time however, it became clear to me that the newly found economic value was very important to them as well. Both their interaction with tourists and the production of textiles serves an economic purpose. According to some of Awamaki’s staff that have been working with these women for many years, money is the only thing that matters in the end. In Bolivia the situation is different because here the act of knitting is referred to as their full-time profession instead of a job or hobby they practice on the side, and the income generated with it seen as a necessity rather than something extra. Nevertheless, here as well I found that knitting means more than just the money it generates. Because of the hard times Fanny faced while in the process of creating her own knitting workshop, there are a lot of emotions attached to it. It is more than just a job; it is invested with feelings of pride, responsibility and a means to create opportunities for others who have less. Moreover, it is noticeable that in Bolivia the products are handled with extreme care and are created to perfection. Further on it will become apparent that the products made for sale in Peru often lack this type of consistency and quality, which can be linked back to the social struggles that take place underneath the surface.

5. Reworking ‘the material’ and ‘the social’

The previous chapter told us something about the significance of handicraft production for the women in Peru and Bolivia. The handicrafts constitute a link to their past, as well as their future, as both ancestral value, as well as the newly found economic value were mentioned as important. This chapter continuous the empirical description of the handicraft experiences I studied by assessing the multiplicity of effects commoditization through FT has on female artisans and the material they produce. Here, the focusing lies on the changing aesthetics of the handicraft, as this will help us understand the influence of commercialization, FT and tourism on the lives of female weavers and knitters in Peru and Bolivia. We follow the ‘social life’ of ‘things’ as they take shape and value through a process in which multiple actors and institutions from different social contexts, give meaning to them. Its value is invested with meaning that both reflect and influence identity processes. Here the aim is to uncover processes of interaction between all actors and the material, as well as to see what the changing materiality can tell us about the social processes that are played out underneath. By viewing the handicraft as a “socialized thing” (Kopytoff, 1986) that incorporates multiple values as it gets “diverted” (Appadurai, 1986) through time and space, it becomes apparent how ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ are appropriated and re-embedded in the process of commoditization of the handicraft (Arce and Long, 2000). We are not only talking about knowledge, system, technique and objective characteristics of ‘things’, rather it is about the social and cultural meaning they are invested with. The focus lies on the creation of value beyond the ‘objective’, as we search for the ‘subjectivities’ that constitute different realities. Reality isn’t solemnly determined by cost-benefit interaction. Subjectivity is central to understand the consistency of groups and conflicts within a group. Therefore, this chapter takes ‘materiality’, visualized in different parts of the handicraft to understand how female artisans embody ideas on FT, and how this affects their social lives, including their ideas on empowerment and gender equality. The chapter consists of three main sections: first, the multiplicity of values that are embodied in the materiality of the handicraft due to commoditization processes. Then the second part discusses the rise of a ‘new FT movement’, followed by an analysis of changing social dynamics as a result of these processes.

5.1 Changing materiality: valuing the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’ The following section looks for the effects of processes of commoditization through collaboration with FT by examining the changes found in the materiality of the handicraft. From the moment female artisans in Peru and Bolivia started to sell their textiles and knitwear, its materiality changed in multiple

48 ways. Both ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ elements were found to be of influence, creating new sets of values around the handicraft. Here we question the extent to which the object remains autonomous, or whether they become totally commoditized. With an analyzes of the changing material we hope to find in what ways the women handicraft producers are changing as well. The commercialization of hand woven and hand knitted textiles led to a revival of the use of naturally dyed alpaca and lama wool, underscoring the value of preserving the ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’. Awamaki is one of those initiatives that “help women artisans by teaching them about color combination, natural dyes methods, and weaving to measurement”30

“Awamaki Lab merges traditional Andean craft and modern design to create luxury wool and alpaca accessories. Products are made using ancient weaving traditions and give a glimpse into the vibrant colors and unique iconography that characterize Andean style”

“Wool and alpaca fiber is purchased directly from the artisans, their families, and their communities. All other materials are 100% natural and are sourced locally and ethically in Peru. Woven pieces are naturally dyed by the artisans and alpaca yarns are hand-spun” (ibid.)

During our group discussion in Huilloc the women explained that before being a cooperative, they did not use natural dyeing materials (anymore), only synthetic yarn. Also, they learned to make much more different types of clothing and accessories since their involvement with FT. Before, their skills were limited to making ponchos31, llikllas32 and polleras33, things just for themselves, not for tourists or other buyers from outside of their community (10/12/2014).

Nadia from Rumira explained to me that, before, she would knit sweaters and shawls for her children:

“Now we are doing a lot more, we have learned to make gloves, headbands, socks etc. We have learned a lot of new ‘points’, before, my teacher only thought me three or four points, but with Awamaki we have learned to use more points” (08/01/15)

30 http://www.awamakistore.org/about-1/ (accessed on 02/09/15) 31 Traditional Peruvian men’s dress that is worn as an outer garment. The Poncho forms a distinctive part of men’s clothing in Huilloc and Patacancha (see figure 22) 32 Rectangular handwoven shoulder cloth fastened at the front using a tupu, a decorated pin (see figure 27) 33 Skirts made from wool cloth, women wear three or four skirts in a graduated layer effect. The trim of these skirt is lined with a colourful handwoven puyto (see figure 17)

“Weaving is a tradition for the women in Huilloc and Patacancha, it is a custom they have. Before, they always wove for themselves, to answer to their needs. They did not have the possibility of buying clothes, so they had to make their own clothing. Now they go to the market more and more. For their own textiles they use the synthetics because it is cheaper and takes less time” (Mercedes 16/01/15).

One of the weavers that works for Ayni Bolivia states that:

“in our celebrations and daily life we use only acrylic, these textiles are made of sheep wool, as it is a material more accessible to us than llama or alpaca fiber as used in ancient times, it is material which is easy to find, easy to knit, easy to wash and dry and there are bright colors that we like to use very much, so now we only use acrylic for our own use and it is part of our culture ... and we use naturally colored alpaca wool, as used by our ancestors, to sell”34

Mercedes told me that she has seen an increase in the use of brightly colored yarn over the past ten years (figure 17-19):

“This might be due to contact with other communities or just a change in ‘fashion style’ someone introduced. Also, their skirts used to be decorated with just an orange stripe, now they have these zigzag patterns and sometimes flowers” (16/01/15)

Figure 17: Girl in Patacancha wearing pollera with bright flower pattern (taken by the author at 12/01/15) Figure 19: Woman from Figure 18: Woman and man from Patacancha (taken in 1979) Patacancha (taken in 1979)

34 http://www.aynibolivia.com/fair.trade/en/content/28-native-textiles

“Here at Awamaki, we only want to work with natural colors, no synthetics; we want yarn without any chemicals. We tell the women they should use those colors for our orders. But in a very general form, if this would not be the case, I think they would no longer weave with alpaca or lama, everything would be synthetic. I think they feel more comfortable with the synthetics as well because of the easy way they can use it, and by going to the market and look for colors” (Mercedes 16/01/15)

Ever since synthetic sheep wool became available to the artisans, they shifted from making their clothes with natural material to synthetic material. Felicitas explains that she started using synthetic wool for her own clothing because it is cheaper. They have been accustomed to the use of synthetics ever since it has been made available to them. Next to the fact that it is cheaper, it is much easier in use because they do not have to spin and dye the wool themselves (10/01/15).

Jesusa explains her decision to use synthetic wool in a similar manner; she does not use alpaca wool for her own textiles because this is too expensive, she uses synthetic wool she buys at the market. She prefers to sell the items made with naturally colored alpaca wool (27/11/14). Helena tells me that the textiles she makes today are different from those made by her grandparents; before, they used natural colors and alpaca wool, but today they use synthetics (11/01/15).

In Huilloc I found similar answers:

“The difference between the textiles we make for ourselves and those for tourists is that for our own clothing we use synthetic wool and for the textiles we sell we use alpaca wool and natural coloring” (Exaltacion 24/11/14)

“40 years ago… these are synthetic right (pointing to their poncho and lliklla), but before they first had to shave the sheep or the alpaca, and then they had to spin the wool, and after that they had to color it with herbs and plants, that was much more work. And now, with the synthetic wool it is different. We use the synthetic wool for our own use, but we continue doing the whole process I described, with natural herbs for tourists and Awamaki, because tourists like these [natural] colors better” (Felicitas 10/01/15)

Gusta from Rumira explained to me how they know what tourists like to buy:

“More than other things we know what tourists like because when we offered items made of synthetic wool, they did not like it. Natural colors, and designs that are different from our own is what they like. When we are at the market and tourists don’t buy certain products, we know they do not like it. For ourselves we buy the synthetic yarn at the market, but for tourists we use the natural fibers” (05/01/15) Figure 20: Handwoven products for sale at the FT store in Ollantaytambo (taken by the author at 09/01/15) Jesusa explained the difference between textiles they make for their own use, and those with the purpose of selling as follows: “The difference is that the textiles for Awamaki are based on their own color and design (figure 20&21). And when we make textiles for the tourists we use design and colors from which we know more or less that they like them (figure 22), based on what they have bought from us in the past. And what we make for ourselves is based

on traditions (figure 23)” (27/11/14). Figure 21: Handwoven products for sale at the FT store in Ollantaytambo (taken by the author at 09/01/15)

Figure 22: Textiles that are sold to tourists in

Patacancha (taken by the author at 10/11/14)

Figure 23: Boys from Patacancha wearing their poncho (taken by the author at 12/01/15)

Vania actually mentioned a similar thing about the artisans she works with in Bolivia:

“The artisans of Bolivia are for 90% made up of people from Aymara culture and they keep their culture alive in different manifestations, but not in de commercial artisanal products they make. The women have learned to make things that sell, not what they like themselves” (30/01/15)

Interestingly, in Rumira the bright colors do not find the same popularity as in the highland communities. They are very enthusiastic about the naturally dyed colors brought to them by Awamaki as Nadia explains to me:

“The [naturally dyed] colors used by Awamaki are very pretty, the colors we have here [in Rumira] are not that pretty. They are mainly the bright colors like the women in the mountain communities use, those colors are very fluorescent. Many of us [in Rumira] like the darker colors better. The colors used by Awamaki are very different, they are nicer, not as bright as the other ones. When you use those bright colors in the sun it hurts your eyes” (08/01/15)

Alicia tells me during our interview that she is still using synthetic wool and bright colors for the textiles she makes for tourist and herself because it is cheaper. The difference is just in the design. For tourists she usually uses the symbols of Peruvian tradition (condor, cuy, Andean cross etc.), for her own clothes she doesn’t include any design due to a lack of time:

“For Awamaki I use naturally dyed alpaca wool with specific designs that probably are more attractive for another category of tourists, the ones more interested in the high-quality materials and in the real textile tradition, but not every tourist can spend a lot of money” (08/01/15).

I noticed during my visits to Patacancha and Huilloc that the younger generation is especially keen on using very bright colors in their polleras, and that they tend to use pink instead of orange as the basic color. When I asked (young) Felicitas about this, she told me that the color pink (figure 24) recently made its way to Patacancha and that it is gained a lot of popularity among the Figure 24: Pollera worn by one of the girls (20/01/2015). girls in Patacancha (taken by author 19/01/15)

I explain to Mercedes that I find it very interesting that what we (as FTOs and tourists) consider to be a traditional part of these women’s culture, the use of alpaca and sheep wool, is actually not used by the women themselves, but only for the purpose of selling to tourists.

“Right, yes the women do not attach much value to these things. And also, new types of customs are entering in their lives. In the case of hats for example; when there is a surprise visit to the community, the women are wearing the other type of brown hats instead of the red ones with the strap. So traditions from before are slowly being lost” (16/01/15).

The women in Patacancha explained how their designs have changed and their skills have expanded over the past years due to the influence of tourism and FT.

“The pictures are different, for tourists I make other designs, less animals, and I use different colors. My own textiles have animals and plants” (Helena 11/01/15)

“Traditionally, the designs we make for ourselves were used by our grandparents and generations before that. We have always used them. They knew how to extract colors from natural materials like plants. The designs are made up of animals that we have and see here in the community together with our large imagination. When we see a dog we use them in our textiles, or when we see flowers we use them in our textiles. That is how we work with our memory. The use of pallay has changed a lot, before we only used a couple of pallay, now we use all classes of pallay. We use a lot of animals. Before, we wove less, we have advanced a lot over the past years because we have been practicing more” (Jesusa 27/11/14)

During my interview with Felicitas I asked her if she would show me her work. While she held up the different textiles to me, she explains that the first ones (figure 25) are the older pallay that her grandparents used to make. When she shows me a belt with animals (figure 26) I ask her if this is harder to make than the other pallay. She tells me that these are indeed the ‘newer’ more complicated pallay that they Figure 25: Scarves with older pallay (taken by the only learned to make after their grandparents passed author at 10/01/15) away (10/01/15).

When I asked Felicitas where she finds the inspiration to use these colors and designs, she doesn’t understand the question and turns to her husband. He tells me that:

“For example, this color red (pointing at his poncho) was used by our grandparents as well. And for example these designs were made by our Figure 26: Textiles that include newer, more grandparents, but in a simpler form, advanced pallay (taken by author 10/01/15) little by little they have advanced over each generation. The women weave a lot and slowly they improve their skills. Before they only knew this type of work (shows the simpler pallay that came before the animals), and only more recently have they learned how to make the more difficult patterns. Here in Patacancha we have been making these more advanced patterns for 20/30 years more or less” (10/01/15)

I asked him how they were able to improve their technique:

“Just by practicing; there are books with pallay, for example these books have drawings of the condor and other animals and the women, by themselves, use this to learn and then little by little they know how to weave more advanced patterns” (10/01/15)

When I try to ask Felicitas again what inspires her to use a particular material and color for her products, she responds with:

“Everyone has a different taste; it has always been like that. You for example like to buy these colors (points to the colors black, blue, orange and red), and other people like for example green or pink, it is different” (10/01/15)

I ask her what colors she likes best:

“I like the colors of my pollera more, with synthetic wool” (10/01/15)

During one of my visits to Patacancha, I made an interesting observation with regard to the differences in taste Felicitas talks about:

I was hiking around Patacancha with one of the other volunteers, when two children joined us and we started talking with them. I showed them the pictures I made on a tiny lcd screen on my camera. Every woman they recognized on the picture was met with a shout of her name. When a picture of one of the women’s lliklla (figure 27) came by while hanging to dry in a garden, the children Figure 27: Lliklla hanging to dry in Patacancha immediately responded with: “Placida, (taken by the author at 08/11/14) Placida!”. I found it fascinating that they recognized the lliklla seeing as women usually own between five or ten of them, and, while each of them is different, they often look similar. For me, this encounter made me more aware of the ‘uniqueness’ every lliklla represents, and how it is an expression of each person’s taste in color and design that comes forth out of multiple sources that inspire them” (observations by the author, 12/01/15)

The women in Huilloc explained that they make similar clothing items as their grandparents did; ponchos, polleras, hat straps etc. Small things have changed such as the design for their pollera and the use of synthetic yarn, the rest is the same. When I asked what inspires them, Virginia tells me:

“For the use of pallay I am inspired by the animals that we have here, for example: condor, horse… all the animals we have here” (24/11/14)

“When we are weaving or spinning these ideas come to mind, or we see something, an animal for example. These things inspire us in the use of pallay” (Simeona 24/11/14)

“The type of pallay comes to my mind, when I look at the yarn I imagine how it would look like to combine the colors and that is how I choose them” (Exaltacion 24/11/14)

When I asked them to explain some of the pallay on their lliklla they showed me the different animals and the pallay that stands for “good harvest”, “flower”, “river” etc. When I pointed to the pallay of Tupac Amaru (the last ruler of the Inca state in Peru) on Exaltation’s lliklla and asked her what Tupac Amaru meant or symbolizes, she started laughing in a shy manner and said: “I don’t know, it’s a Tupac Amaru” (24/11/14)

I noticed that Virginia had a guitar woven onto the strap of her montera (figure 28), I did not see any of the other women having this. Their designs mainly consisted of animals, flowers etc. I asked her about it and she told me that she likes the sound of guitar music and that is why she put it on there. On the question whether she would like to learn how to play guitar herself she started laughing nervously and answered with “yes”. Other examples of ‘non- traditional’ designs were described to me by another volunteer who was working for Awamaki at the time. During a tour to Patacancha she saw a woman with a helicopter woven onto her lliklla, and

Figure 28: Virginia and her another time she saw something that looked like a boat. While never youngest child during a photoshoot (taken by the author at 16/12/14) having seen a boat in the water, this woman explained that she was inspired by her children’s boat toy.

After the interview in Huilloc I left for the bathroom and when I got back I saw them holding my newly bought FT bag while looking at it and discussing the design together. I walked over there and asked them whether they liked it. They responded with “yes we like it and we want to make it, it is beautiful” (24/11/14). They started counting the pattern and asked me whether I could bring a photo of the design next time I came (figure 29).

A similar thing happened to me in Patacancha. After the interview with Jesusa, Hermenegilde and Doris, I noticed that some of the other women were looking at my bag. I asked them if they like the bag and they started laughing shyly and said “yes we like it, this pallay stands for good harvest” (27/10/14) Figure 29: Pallay on FT bag (taken by author at 27/10/14)

Interestingly, when I asked during the interview if they are inspired by Awamaki’s designs, and if they use elements of them in their own textiles, Jesusa responded with: “The designs brought to us by Awamaki are solely for Awamaki. We do not make these designs for ourselves” (27/11/14).

Earlier however, I heard that the women from Patacancha were told not to use particular designs developed by an international client for their own textiles, because this falls under the ‘protected property’ of the client. I believe this is also why Jesusa answered like this, because during my stay with

57 both Cristina and Felicitas I noticed that some of the products they sell to tourists are similar to those sold in the FT store. That said, I believe they are inspired by these ‘new designs’, but since they have been told not to copy the ones designed by the client, they answered accordingly.

When I asked Mercedes about what seemed like a paradox to me; the women not being allowed to copy a design that is based on what is theirs to begin with, she told me that:

“It’s a condition, that you should not copy the designs. I have observed that it is not important for them, with regard to the design, that we [as a FT organization] can use them and make a combination of our ideas and their tradition, because this skill of weaving they use to earn income. It is more important for them to have an economic income than discussing about the designs. From my point of view, income is much more important. They gain income straight through their textiles. In the three years I have worked with them, nobody asked or told me: “why, this is our design, I don’t agree”. What they ask for, every time, are more orders so they can increase their income. Because the majority of the women use the money they earn for their children’s education. When they make a budget, everything goes to education; books, school supplies etc” (16/01/15)

When I asked Felicitas whether she likes Awamaki’s designs and if they inspire her, she said yes. I noticed that she had guitar straps (Figure 30), identical to those sold in the FT store, in the collection of textiles she made for tourists. When I asked her if she has the guitar strap because there was something wrong with it, she said there wasn’t, that she made it with the purpose of selling it to tourists (10/01/15).

Figure 30: Guitar straps sold to tourists in Patacancha (taken by author at 12/01/15) The day before, me and other volunteers were having tea at Helena’s house and she commented on the vest I was wearing. I referred to this moment and asked her whether seeing these new things inspires her. She said that these things are indeed inspirations for her (11/01/15).

In Rumira, Gusta told me she and the others are influenced by Awamaki’s designs (figure 31):

“For us these designs are new, we make similar things, but slightly different” (05/01/15).

Nadia adds that:

“Awamaki’s designs definitely inspire us. For example, during this time (low season), we are not making anything and take advantage of this situation by making things for ourselves. Our own gloves and shawls, because it will be cold in a couple months, so we take Awamaki’s designs and make this for ourselves. Not for sale but for Figure 31: Knitwear for sale at the FT store in ourselves” (08/01/15) Ollantaytambo (taken by the author at

08/01/15)

When I explained to Mercedes that in Patacancha and Huilloc some women noticed my FT bag (that contains a combination of modern and traditional elements) and told me they taught it was very pretty, I asked her in what way she thinks they are influenced by this.

“Yes, but that are just some of them, not all women have that kind of interest, to make a replica. Maybe it is their intention to innovate or improve their textiles. Some textiles might for example not be striking for a client or tourist, but if they change it, no? Because the institute (Awamaki) is always in contact with current fashion. So, as I already said, some of the women have the hope of improving their technique, designs and textiles. Others are more traditional and stay with what they know” (16/01/15)

In Bolivia, I asked Fanny if she knits any clothing for herself or her family:

“For me to wear?” (starts laughing) “No, barely. One garment. Sometimes when there is no work I tell the women they can make something for themselves or their children, but this has not happened yet” (27/01/15)

I asked her if this had to do with the high cost of the alpaca wool they use:

“yes, nothing is cheap. It is beautiful but…” (27/01/15)

You rather sell it?

“Yes” (starts laughing). “Sometimes, when my husband asks, can you make this sweater for me… but then we had an order and we couldn’t knit fast like that so he never got his sweater (laughing). And then every time we say: “the next, the next” (laughing)” (27/01/15)

With regard to the designs they make for their own shop in town (figure 32), Fanny explains that many of them are developed by herself and her oldest daughter who studied graphic design:

“She suggest things to make. We create prints together. Or for example when we walk in the street and we see something we like, we use this as an inspiration. Sometimes they just come to us and we can create them. As well, we have worked with a designer; she has helped us a little as well. She helped us create more designs and to extent our product base” (27/01/15)

I asked her if she is inspired by things she sees in fashion magazines as well,

“sometimes, yes. When we have to make an order for a client, they send me pictures and/or drawings of the garment with all the measurements and the color codes on there.

Figure 32: Knitwear for sale at ‘Moderna Sometimes we take things from our client’s Alpaca’, La Paz (taken by the author at designs and use it for our own, just some 27/01/15) things, we do not copy it” (27/01/15).

When I asked her if their own collection is inspired by items they make for international FT clients (figure 33), she said this is not the case as they cannot use their designs. They have experienced themselves that when they are selling their own work at fairs, people would make photos of their products and copy it (27/01/15).

As mentioned earlier, in both Peru and Bolivia I was told that textiles that are adjusted to Western aesthetic preferences sell better than those that contain a lot of ‘traditional’ elements. Vania adds that:

“It is very important to understand that most Figure 33: Children’s vest made for an commercial designs are inspired by the lives of international client, El Alto (taken by those who will be using this product. For the author at 27/01/15)

example, a product for Germany is inspired by the lives of Germans, and this is what defines the client and product” (30/01/15)

To conclude this sub-chapter on the materiality of the handicraft, we can say that artisans, FTO’s and consumers invest the handicraft with different values. Analyzing changes in the material and design of textiles tell us something about new values that are created in response to globalization processes. There is the change in fiber; ever since the weavers in Peru have gained access to synthetic materials, they buy wool at the market instead of producing it themselves. Because of its practicality, and the new and bright colors they can choose from, there has been a shift from the use of naturally dyed alpaca wool, to synthetically dyed sheep wool. They have integrated this new modern material in their textiles. The majority of ‘ethnotourists’ are however not interested in ‘non-authentic’ synthetically dyed textiles as they come looking for the ‘authentic experience’, and thus for the material that for them represents a link to cultural Andean history. FTOs respond to this need for an ‘authentic’ handmade product by encouraging and supporting artisans to reintegrate traditional practices, and by representing them to the outside world as embodiments of authentic culture. With this they help construct a ‘virtual reality’, based on notions of ‘authenticity’, an image central to the validation of FT’s work in the handicraft sector. When projecting Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’ at these dynamics, one might say that FT is facilitating the ‘diversions’ Appadurai is talking about. The social lives of handicrafts as they move from production to consumption, are culturally marked by FT as ‘fair’ and ‘authentic’, and serve the purpose of tapping into consumer’s emotions. Only when this distinction is made, items can be sold based on their subjective, rather than objective value. So, more than diverting objects from their original pathways, FT draws attention to the producers behind the handicrafts to create a product that is both unique and produced in a socially responsible way. For this reason, these objects can’t be totally commoditized as they need to maintain a link to the information behind the object for these added values to exist. It was found that for their own textiles, the weavers mainly incorporate ‘traditional’ pallay that are inspired by their immediate surroundings and ancestral heritage. This is changing however as they are influenced more and more by new designs they make for international clients and new modern objects they encounter in their environment. The changing material visualizes how they are open and susceptible to influences from outside of their communities due to their interaction with tourists and the link to Western markets the FTO provides them with. Its shows us how they take ‘modern’ items and incorporate them in existing structures. Besides making orders for FTO’s, the women in Huilloc and Patacancha sell textiles to tourists during the frequent tours to their villages. Before the introduction to FT and these tour packages,

61 female artisans would sell some of their textiles to the sporadic tourist. These were items similar to those they would make for themselves. The data however illustrates that the materiality of these textiles are changing. They found that by answering to the aesthetical preferences of tourists, higher sales were generated. Thus, for these items as well, naturally dyed alpaca wool is used and the designs mainly consist of geometric figures, based on those created for the FTO. One might say that a ‘double diversion’ is found when it comes to the materiality of the handicraft; for FTOs and tourists, the artisans create handicrafts with ‘traditional’ material and (increasingly) ‘modern’ designs based on constructed ideas about ‘authenticity’, whereas the women themselves still use the traditional design, but have incorporated ‘non-traditional’ material. Both are ‘reinventing’ a product that somehow absorbs both ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ elements, and together these actors construct ‘multiple authenticities’ of what Andean textiles are. This leads to a widening gap both aesthetically, as well as how the material is valued, between those items made for the women themselves and their family, and those made for sale. Interestingly, it seems that the material ‘we’ consider to be part of Andean cultural life, is further removed from what the women identify themselves with, namely the modern elements they have re-embedded in their local practices. It is even questionable whether these ‘authentic’ practices would still exist, were it not for the need to stay true to a certain image to maintain credibility to tourists and consumers. Thus, while female artisans in Peru weave and knit more frequently, the connection to the products they create for sale seem to diminish, as sales value becomes more important. In the knitting group in Bolivia, textiles are only made for selling purposes. They solely use high quality alpaca wool. Their own designs are not only based on imagination, but also influenced by international designers who have visited them, things they see in fashion magazines and through the products they make for international clients. Except for their use of alpaca wool, the textiles do not seem to incorporate any ‘authentic’ or ‘traditional’ elements. They are however valued for more than their quality of material; with sentences like ‘handmade in Bolivia’ the consumer gains insight in the production process and through this, a link with the producer is created.

5.2 Rise of new handicrafts movement As mentioned in an earlier section, FT handicrafts sales dropped when the movement changed course during the late 80s. While certified food-products were largely diverted from ‘ethically driven’ to ‘high quality’ markets, FT handicrafts still tapped into consumer’s humanitarian sensibility. In recent years, the position of FT handicrafts, mainly textiles, are diverting along a similar line. Interest from the high- end fashion industry impregnated these items with new value in their quest for ‘high quality’ materials. This ‘new FT movement’ as one might call it, builds on the work done by ‘traditional Fair Traders’. The

62 coming paragraphs will explain these new developments and illustrate how these changes at the global level are experienced by the local handicraft producers. In the article: “It’s a wrap: Alpaca wool hits the runway”35, Peruvian native Michelle Peglau, owner and designer of Hortensia Handmade, talks about the growing demand of alpaca wool accessories for high-end boutiques in the US. She attributes the interest of alpaca to several factors including designers seeking more exotic and rare yarns; “cashmere is very mass produced and high- end designers are looking for a substitute”. Michelle explains a shift she has seen over the years; she recalls a time when she would sell products at trunk shows and try to tell people about the process and the artisans and they would listen politely. But now, this has changed, people really listen. It is nevertheless important that the design needs to be beautiful and the product well-made to attract a customer’s attention first. According to Michelle:

“The ability to create contemporary, high-end designs using a lesser known and available fiber are among the reasons alpaca wool has gained a prominent space in luxury fashion circles. It is something new for trend-setters to wrap their head around”

In my interview with Vania she explains what her experience with this new movement is compared to the ‘traditional’ Fair Traders:

“What traditional FTOs are missing is good marketing and sales to distantiate FT products from conventional market products. This is where the ‘new’ Fair Traders come in. This group consists of small and medium sized shops of very high quality and professionalism. Their experience and professionalism leads to a brand customers trust and are willing to pay a lot of money for. Since these processes cost a lot of money, it can be the case that a customer pays eight times the price for a product than the price received by the producers, but the price received by the producers is still higher than those received by traditional Fair Trade clients (almost twice as much). In this model a client does not buy a ‘Fair Trade’ product, but rather a product of high quality sold by an expert. For the producer it does not matter that his/her price is multiplied by eight, all that matters is to have the best possible payment for their products, and that it is paid in cash on delivery. Moreover, a company with high transnational corporate social responsibility complies to the principles of Fair Trade beyond that of a traditional FTO” (30/01/15)

35 http://fortune.com/2015/02/11/alpaca-wool-luxury/ (accessed on 16/03/15)

According to Nicholls and Opal (2005), the lack of commercialization and absence of product labeling or branding in crafts has been significant. It has meant that: 1) the appeal of craft and textile products outside the FTO store is reduced; 2) the ability to differentiate FT craft products from non-FT products is limited; 3) the lack of ‘brand’ value reduces consumer trust in the FT credentials of the product; and 4) any attempt to position FT craft in a premium price range is relatively ineffective (2005, p. 24). However, while the European Fair Trade craft market has languished, the North America and Pacific Rim network of FTOs (which are more market-oriented than their European counterparts) represents a stronger future market for FT crafts (Krier, 2007; Nicholls & Opal, 2005).

“The traditional FT clients only expect a catalogue from which to choose and they do not do anything with product development themselves. Gradually we hope that these clients will pay designers to work with them so that we can make more commercial products for them” (Vania 30/01/15)

Observers of the FT craft industry have likewise highlighted problems concerning the ideologically driven trading model for the movement’s goal of empowering producers:

“None of the Fair Traders are very creative people. This is the irony— people who know nothing about this game are running [Fair Trade]. Producers don’t own it, and professionals in design and marketing— people who know products and how to market and sell them well so they hit the high-end and are valued as they should be—aren’t in the FTOs. In fact, we’re not allowed in—there are all these development-gatekeepers. So they’re stuck in a charity-driven, charity supported model where design and quality are neglected and so their prices have to be quite cheap” (David 2008 during Regional Conference, Sri Lanka – Opening Speech, quoted in Hutchens 2010).

“Our artisans who make Alpaca for designers in New York and Paris are valued for this high quality work. It all depends on the feedback they get back from the client, one of which is economic, but a large part of it is social recognition” (Vania 30/01/15)

“Products that are more “Westernized” sell much better and can give better returns to the producers. There are clients who only value the more traditional and ‘ethnic’ products, but their price margins and market strategy is similar to those for cheap products. On the contrary, customers of the ‘new’ FT movement that is developing seeks products that have cultural details, but it needs to fit within their design” (Vania 30/01/15)

In Peru, I found that because of a lack of sales of their products, Awamaki is in the process of adjusting their designs and quality to appeal to more high-end customers, Ivy explains this process to me as follows:

“All the textiles are designed by the staff. Before I came in more than a year ago, the products were not selling at all, the colors and designs did not appeal to the international market. In my design I often incorporate elements of traditional pallay, but not always, it depends on the client. I do notice that the products with geometric designs are more popular than those with pallay, their sale is increasing” (Ivy 05/11/14)

Ivy furthermore tells me that the international market for handspun and hand knitted fashion items has gained popularity over the past years, leading to a lot of competition. This becomes visible at big trade shows in the US for example:

“The organizations that are there have reached a higher level of quality than Awamaki. The quality and range of designs of our products need to improve to comply to this” (05/11/14)

Ivy explains that she has to communicate with the artisans through Mercedes and Martha, but since they don’t have a similar amount of experience with what is expected in terms of quality, and have no idea about the fierceness of the competition, this leads to a lot of problems with regard to quality management (05/11/14).

When talking to the women in Patacancha about difficulties they face in their collaboration with Awamaki, issues related to time and quality management come up a lot. During the multiple interview in Patacancha, Jesusa explains the problems they are currently facing regarding quality control:

“When we get a picture of a new design and we have to make it, they often do not look totally similar. On the picture the design looks perfect, but when you are working on it, it does not always come out in the same way. This can be a bit difficult sometimes. We are currently learning how to improve this” (27/11/14).

In a later interview in Patacancha, Felicitias tells me that orders need to be made within a limited amount of time which affects the quality. She feels a lot of pressure and explains that it would be better for her to have more time (10/01/15).

During the group discussion in Patacancha as well, many women mentioned that they faced difficulties with the orders because they need to be of such a high standard and that when they do not comply money is lost. In the future they want to improve the quality of their textiles, organize the cooperative in a better way and create better communication amongst the members. They want to have more orders, because when there are none, they become reliant on their husbands again. (19/01/2015)

Mercedes blames the quality related problems to a lack of understanding among part of the cooperative members in Patacancha:

“Within the group there is a small group that understands what we ask of them. The majority does not understand and weave to weave. For example, their weaknesses are the measurements that are short. Even if they know what is the work that must be submitted to the US, there is always an error” (16/01/15)

I told Mercedes that when I talked with Felicitas about this, she blames a lack of time for the quality errors. She responded as follows:

“But having to hurry, this is not always the case. This happens at times, but not every time when we give them an order. As well, the concept of time is problematic; they don’t understand the notion of time that is given to them. One of the things we want to achieve is that they understand what amount of time they should weave for a good result. We want to optimize this type of work they are doing so that they can get an idea of the costs of production. Because they say I have worked on this for a month, but it is not like that. When you talk with experts like Andreas, Magdalena, they know exactly in what amount of time they finish a textile. And then it is well made. Like I told you, one of the weaknesses is that many of them do not know how to read or write. That is a very difficult barrier, especially in our efforts to make this an autonomous group. This is a weakness that the cooperatives have in Patacancha”. (16/01/15)

“Interestingly, when you visit Huilloc you notice that the women there do understand. In Huilloc the situation is different because the women are younger and most of them know how to read and write in Spanish. They have contact with other institutions as well, ‘Lima Tour’ for example, and the municipality. Lima Tour helps them a lot with their tourism programs

through trainings. They also manage their own bank account, Awamaki helps them make deposits to this account” (Mercedes 16/01/15).

In Rumira things run fairly smoothly as well. In my experience this has a lot to do with Martha’s role as production coordinator. She was chosen for this role because of her eye for quality and time management skills. Being chair of the cooperative and working for Awamaki as the production coordinator she is always on top of things. With the Puente Inca cooperative there have been more problems due to a lack of organization and communication among the women. Here they face similar issues as Patacancha with regard to quality control and orders that are not submitted in time.

In Bolivia, Fanny explains to me that:

“Due to their earlier experiences, when there is a deadline, they know what to do. Other people, when you tell them something is urgent, they do not know what this means. We know how to work under this type of pressure. We know that being on time with orders is very important to keep clients happy. When we get a new order I talk with the client to make sure we know exactly what needs to be done and then I explain this to the other women. I am always the one that takes care of the samples and drawings, and I teach them how to do advanced patterns. I look at the quality of the products when they are nearly done and decide if something needs to be changed” (27/01/15)

To sum up we can state that from the traditional FT handicraft movement, the one playing to the authenticity of the product and the distinctiveness of the people that made it, another ‘movement’ is rising. These ‘new Fair Traders’ value handicrafts for their material quality. Rather than playing to the consciousness of the consumer, they let the product speak for itself. While these new Fair Traders seem to be much more part of the ‘neoliberal system’ by adjusting the products to a Western need for quality and design, they also adhere to the FT principles. Moreover, even though the products themselves might be further removed from what is seen as the ‘authentic’ aesthetic value, or that what the weaver or knitters would make for themselves, the craft itself, the process of labor, is valued ever so highly. This new development does however encounter struggles at the local level, as the high-end fashion industry requires high quality products according to standards set by the conventional Western market. While traditional FT products are mostly valued for the story behind them, and in that sense assessed by different standards, handicrafts that want to conquer a place in fashion do not have this luxury. Thus, in order to compete with others, certain conditions must be met. For most cooperatives in

Peru this is difficult, not only because their skills might not be as advanced as other weaving and knitting cooperatives in the world, but also because they work from a ‘different reality’. For example, when it comes to the notion of time, they do not think about this in a similar way as the people who buy their products. The next chapter will tell us more about how these new pressures and policies affect the social dynamics among the Peruvian handicraft producers. In Bolivia the situation is different, here the women have much more experience with making deadlines and maintaining a certain quality. They have learned to work according to the demands of the market. Here we might question whether the lack of quality found in the Peruvian cases only exist because of the disconnection between realities and/or lack of skills, or whether it has to do with how they value the products they make for sale. This could then lead to an indication that Fanny and her co- workers are actually more deeply invested in the products than their Peruvian counterparts, despite the assumption that Peruvian artisans are more closely linked to their products due to its link to ancestral history.

5.3 Fair Trade’s effects in ‘the social’ This empirical chapter begins with an examination of the social implications found in local contexts due to newly formed connections with FTOs, the rise of ‘new’ FTOs and interaction with tourists. Here, the focus is on changes in social relations among women in the cooperatives and in their communities, underlying power structures that come to the fore, their relation with the FTOs, and how this leads to new identity processes. The next section then describes changes concerning women’s empowerment and gender equality by using the concepts of ‘agency’, ‘resources’ and ‘achievements’ as introduced by Kabeer (1999).

5.3.1 Changing social relations through Fair Trade cooperation When I asked the women how they would describe their experience of working together in a cooperative, they responded with:

“Working with other women I feel part of a community with the same history and identity and this union gives me the strength to face an uncertain future” (Silvia 20/11/14)

“Before we were a cooperative, almost none of the women would see each other very often, besides once or twice a week during market days or in the church. But since we formed a cooperative, we work together for a whole day a week and we feel confident. We now see each other

more or less three times a week, and also when we have small meetings amongst each other [besides the central meeting every Thursday when Mercedes comes to visit]. When there are parties we see each other, or other activities, almost every moment we see each other” (All laughing) (Jesusa 27/11/14)

Felicitas tells me she likes to be part of the cooperative and that she is happy with the contact she has with some of the other women, especially since she is not originally from Patacancha. She is good friends with Helena, who comes from another community as well (10/01/15). In Rumira a similar thing happened according to Gusta:

“Before there was a cooperative, we were not together, we did not have meetings. We were all knitting separately at our home. Just for some tourists, on a very small scale and for people like us, nothing more. But now since we have an association, we knit together, and discuss what we have to make for Awamaki and for tourists. We have more contact with each other. I like that” (05/01/15)

“Being part of the cooperative is important because it gives us the possibility of work and to give our opinions. For me this is very important. Before we did not work together. We were not able to communicate with each other like we do now” (Nadia 08/01/15)

Interestingly, when the women in Patacancha were asked during the group discussion whether the social relations amongst each other had grown stronger since working together in a cooperative, all of them answered with “no”. Most of them remained quiet. One of the women said “communication between us is still missing”. Someone else says that there is trust, but that they do not treat each other as friends (19/01/15).

According to Mercedes, there is a division within the cooperative in Patacancha:

“Some women definitely participate more than others. I have seen for example that there are persons who care very little. They don’t take it seriously when there is a meeting, they do not take their commitment seriously. They have the character to be a conformist. This is one of the problems in the meetings, that conformist attitude “yes, like that is fine” etc. With ten women, yes they want to change, yes they want to have their own weaving centre, but the others do not care, they are not interested. There is opposition between the women in the group, and as long as this is the case, they will never advance. So, internally, the

relation between the women is not good. For example, there is no solidarity, no companionship. These are not people of integrity. That does not exist with them. They feel discontent with regard to other women’s advantages, success, possessions etc. There is no (positive) envy; when you made it, that’s good, when something goes wrong, too bad for you. In the past three years I have seen these forms of division. The relation between the women, their interaction, is not good. They do not show solidarity towards each other, and to achieve success we need a group that works together as a team” (16/01/15)

“I think that one of the most critical problems is their limitation of understanding things which results in a clash. This is because they do not know how to read or write. This is a very difficult problem. Sometimes someone does not understand and that always leads to conflicts. Because there are women that do not understand what you are saying. They do not understand. They do not know how to read or write. The women close themselves off” (Mercedes 16/01/15)

I asked Mercedes how the relationship is with women outside of the cooperative in Patacancha. She tells me that there were many women that wanted to become part of the cooperative as well, this is why they recently decided to form a second cooperative. This was not something the first group was very happy about since it decreased the orders they received as a group. “Before we paid them quite a lot, but in the previous year, in 2014, there has not been a lot of income for them. In 2013 there was much more. It is because we created the new group this year that the first group suffers. They tell me, please give us more work, we need more money, our children need to study” (16/01/15). Because of this, the women told Mercedes that they don’t want Awamaki to work with any more cooperatives.

Another example that illustrates the ‘interaction of multiple realities’ between the women and the FTO, is that of the weaving centre in Patacancha. It is during my first visit to a meeting in Patacancha that I hear Mercedes talk about it:

“This meeting Mercedes spoke about the need for a new weaving centre in the community where they can work freely and which would be owned by the cooperative. Also, in front of the community centre (where the meetings are held), they decided that grass should be planted to give it a nice appeal for tourists. Mercedes showed the women that you can do this yourself if you work together as a group. The reason for this new weaving center is that there has been some trouble with the current weaving centre which is built on the land of one of the families in the community. The woman in this family is part of the cooperative as well.

When a tour is scheduled to the community through Awamaki, rent needs to be paid to the husband of the family. Normally the cooperative makes use of a rotating schedule; when there is a tour, depending on the number of tourists, a couple women are involved to give the tourists a weaving lesson and afterwards have the option to sell their own textiles to the group of tourists. Other women are not allowed to do this (although I have seen some of them do it anyway). Problems arose when the landowner demanded that his wife should be involved with more tours than the other women. So it became a situation where the man would allow Awamaki to use the weaving centre, on the condition that his wife would receive an advantaged position. At some point the husband even refused to accept the rent money, this was not necessary according to him. Awamaki however wanted to hold up to their end of the agreement and forced him to accept it. For me, this situation sheds light on social dynamics and power relations within the community” (observations by author 30/10/14)

In Rumira, Gusta tells me that she has almost no contact with women outside of the cooperative:

“There are some that want to learn but do not really like to knit. We are not going to oblige them of course. There are others that want to participate but then they say they want to but then they do not come to the next meeting for example. We cannot work with women that are like that” (05/01/15)

According to Nadia:

“The relation with women in Rumira that are not part of the cooperative is good because we offer them insight in the organization and if they want they can enter. There are rules, but we are open and the situation is normal, we for example included a girl from “Piri”, like... that is normal. Everyone can enter the meetings and if you want to become part of the cooperative this is possible. There are other women’s organizations however, those part of the municipality, who treat us badly and put us in a negative light because we work with an NGO. They always ask us why do you work for them, why not for us? That is our sacrifice” (08/01/15)

In Bolivia, Fanny explains to me that she had very bad experiences with the first knitting group she tried to set up:

“We started out as a group of friends. But sometimes when you form a group not everyone agrees with the way it is run, the decisions that are

made. Everyone has their own ideas, right? We were able to have two shops with the group. We were working at home in our houses and we had clients but we wanted to export directly to clients abroad but because there wasn’t a good organization this was not possible. Now we have a small knitting workshop here. Before it was half the size of this room, very small, after that we were able to make it bigger” (27/01/15)

In the current knitting group things run more smoothly:

“I have been working in this knitting group, in this setting, for almost 12 years now, but with Ayni Bolivia, since 9, 10 years. And I’ve been working together with the other women for about 5 years now. Before I was working alone, but because they know how to work, I have been together with them for five years. We started out with just the women from Wilma’s, and it was all about our families. But when we got more orders than we could handle, more women joined. When there is a deadline, they come in earlier and leave later. They know. We understand each other. That is the work. Working in the factory helped us to learn the skill, deal with deadlines and what is expected from clients in terms of quality. We said to ourselves: we can do it ourselves as well, we understand how it works, and we have hands. Working there inspired us to start for ourselves. Working here together in the knitting workshop feels better than other jobs, but sometimes we feel a bit miserable when there are not so many orders. We are persons with needs and so having enough work is a necessity for us all. Sometimes there are single women working here. These women have to ask themselves: where can I live, where can I look for work? Working here gives them a bit of an advantage because they can go to their house and come back during the day. They feel comfortable here. In a factory the rules are much stricter” (27/01/15)

Their first collaboration with a (WFTO certified) FTO wasn’t all that positive:

“A lot of things happened to us. Little by little we met with other people. We got to know many people and associations. During this time we also met with Don Antonia (ASARBOLSEM) and we worked with her organization for many years. But she has not been very loyal as I explained to you before in terms of the orders we got and often it took six months before we received our money. There was a lot of disorganization within the organization, the communication was not clear and we lost a lot of orders because of it. This was a deception for us. We used to sell our own designs to a client through ASARBOLSEM, but when the client wanted to work with us directly, Don Antonia did not allow this,

she wanted to stay the mediator. This is one of the things we do not like about our collaboration with ASARBOLSEM” (27/01/15)

A much more positive collaboration arose with (WFTO certified) Ayni Bolivia:

“During that time we met with other organizations, like Ayni Bolivia. Vania collaborates more with us, she understands us and our situation better. We get paid straight away, and she explained to us what FT is and how we can work according to these guidelines. This is a big difference with our experience working for ASARBOLSEM, they did not give us information about this.I know from a lot of women that used to work for ASARBOLSEM but left to work for themselves or other organizations because they were not happy. How we are treated by Ayni Bolivia is much better, they ask us if we have time to make an order within a specific time frame and do so in advance. We always handed in the products on time for ASARBOLSEM, but the past years we have grown a dislike for Senora Dona Antonia. These years the collaboration has not been good. We want to keep working for Ayni Bolivia and for the small shop we have in town, that as well is a help for us. And sometimes somebody contacts us for an order directly. Slowly we are moving forwards. When there are orders at Ayni Bolivia, Vania often comes to us because we know how to make lots of designs. They understand us. They are always helping us with work and other things” (27/01/15)

Vania believes that:

“The relationship between Ayni Bolivia and the producers is very cordial and trusted from both sides. Not just because we practice the Andean idea of Ayni but also because we have been working with each other for many years, and have created friendships with them. This is not based on the idea behind FT, it has to do with the way we do business. It is never a purely commercial relation, we always ask how they are doing, if they have any problems. We also ask about the successes in their lives at all levels. They invite us to weddings, baptism, and to be part of their daily lives. I feel very privileged to work with these great Bolivian producers, who have shown me that anything is possible when the conditions are right. Especially the women that have come out of very problematic situations, it is an honour for me to be considered their friend. I admire them very much and they have shown me that their strength is unwavering, so I give them the best I have and all my effort because I know they give me the same, it is Ayni” (30/01/15)

In summary, it can be said that in all the cooperatives, women mentioned that being part of a cooperative, or knitting group, has increased the contact they have with women in the same group. In Patacancha however, there seems to be an opposition within the group where some (mostly the younger literate women) want to move forward and understand what is expected of them, while others don’t. Also, they face problems with regard to communication amongst each other. This has a negative effect on the progress (according to Awamaki’s “Impact Model”36) they can make as a group. An example of this division can be illustrated by the quest for a new weaving centre; Jesusa explained to me that while some understand the need for this, others are afraid of changes and rather stick to their old ways. The introduction of tourism and the link to Western market demands make underlying structures such as these visible. The same can be said for the problems experienced with the old weaving centre; this confrontation uncovers ways of thinking that find their origin in different cultural realities. Where the FTO thinks in a very businesslike manner, the owner of the land is much more concerned with his position in the community and how he can use his power to influence this. The initiation of a second cooperative in Patacancha makes for another interesting example to see what is happening underneath the surface. The first cooperative sees its orders and profits declining which leads to more tensions within the group, as well as friction in relation to the women in the new cooperative. The relations among women within and outside of the cooperatives in Patacancha are sharpened through the influences of FT and tourism. So far this seems to lead to divisions and feelings of displeasure towards one another. With regard to how this influences their relation to the FTO, I have heard a lot of complaining about a lack of orders and tourists and also in terms of quality management, the women are not content. They even went as far as saying that they do not want the FTO to work with more groups, as they are afraid this would affect their own position even more so. In Rumira, the women are open to others joining the cooperative as long as they abide to their rules. Relationships within the cooperative seem to be fairly good, no frictions such as those in Patacancha. They are however ‘judged’ by others for working with a foreign NGO, instead of collaborating with a locally owned organization. This, Nadia calls “their sacrifice”. In Bolivia, Fanny experienced problems when setting up a first knitting group, this did not work because of communication problems that created friction between them. Luckily this changed in the new group, here she founds people that think and act in a similar fashion and they can rely on each other. Interestingly she describes a totally different experience when it comes to working with one FTO or the other. While working with ASARBOLSEM she encountered a lot of problems with communication

36 https://awamaki.org/2015/05/19/working-towards-independence-awamaki-impact-model/ (accessed on 18/11/16)

74 and delay of payment, with Ayni Bolivia this is a totally different, here they know what they can expect from each other.

5.3.2 Gender equality and women’s empowerment Research on the Fairtrade system shows that it does not make women’s empowerment explicit, nor is there much evidence that gender plays a prominent role in Fairtrade activities (Hutchens, 2010, pp. 451, 452). Fairtrade is accused of largely having failed to alter gender relations that have historically been unequal, despite the transformative goals of equitable participation (Lyon, 2010, p. 131). However, women’s participation in artisan FT cooperatives is found to promote positive economic and social change in communities. This section will discuss experiences concerning gender equality and women’s empowerment that I encountered in the field. Following Kabeer (2005), I will question women’s ability to make ‘strategic life choices’ by focusing on the three interrelated dimensions of ‘agency’, ‘resources’ and ‘achievements’. I will do this by first outlining the data for each fieldwork site, followed by my analysis.

When I asked the women in Patacancha whether the relation between men and women has changed since the start of the cooperative, Jesus tells me: “Yes it has changed. Today we earn money as well, before we didn’t. Now we earn an equal amount”. I ask if this means they make more decisions within the household as well, which Jesusa responds with: “decisions, no”. So I ask them in what way they view themselves as equals to men. Again, it is Jesusa who speaks:

“Before, for example, the women were the sole caretakers of the children and animals. The men held the autonomy. It was difficult then. Before there were no jobs, this has changed with the coming of tourists and orders from Awamaki. They help us to develop further. Now both men and women work, but in terms of decision making, we are not always able to make them. Our husbands talk in the same manner as before. We are still being discriminated. We do talk together when something needs to be bought for example”.

When I ask Mercedes about her observations on the decision-making power of the women, she responds with:

“They are always subjected to the men. They always tell me “I will go to my husband, I will ask my husband”. They never make decisions alone. They always need the acceptance of the husband” (16/01/15)

Jesusa tells me that they had a lot of help from their religion:

“We know the words of God. Before, the husbands would hit their wives. But now they help us with taking care of the children and cooking. The word of God has helped us with this as well. Now we work more together on these things. And also towards our children we try to educate both the boys and girls” (27/11/14).

Felicitas explained to me that almost all people are religious in Patacancha, most of them are Evangelical. Religion and the church changed a lot for Patacancha. When she was younger, her dad used to drink a lot and abuse her. Her husband does not drink (10/01/15).

During the group discussion in Patacancha, the women explain that the gender roles have changed during the past years. They say that they can speak up now, whereas before they were afraid. Before it was just the husband that was working, but now they are too. The husbands help them with cleaning the clothes and taking care of the children (19/01/15). (Young) Felicitas explains that in her household, her father had to get used to the idea of her mother working but now he feels ok with it and is happy with her contribution (20/01/15).

Observations in my homestay in Patacancha affirmed the things I heard in interviews:

“During my interview with Felicitas at her house, her husband walks in and he asks how it is going and what we are doing. I explain to him that I am asking Felicitas some questions about weaving etc. He sits down at our table so I decided to ask him some questions as well. His Spanish is much better and he is not held back to talk. Here again, as I noticed in other situations, the husband quickly takes over the conversation. Felicitas returns to the kitchen to prepare lunch for him and her children. I continued the interview after lunch when her husband had left again. During the two days I stayed with Felicitas and her family I noticed that her husband likes to keep an eye on everything that is going on. While I am writing field notes he asks me if everything is ok, what I am doing, and what I am planning on doing. After I explained everything to him he seemed satisfied and carried on with his activities. At night and in the morning the family would sit in the kitchen together and the husband would help prepare the food” (observations by author 10/01/15)

During the group discussion in Huilloc the women explained that in their cooperative, the gender roles between men and women have changed as well. Where women used to help their husbands on the land and were the sole caretakers of their children, they now have a job of their own and do not need to accompany their husbands anymore. About their ability to become active in the local government they said that in the community women can run for all positions within the local government, there has however not been a female president yet. They ascribed the former lack of involvement of women in the local government to their low level of education. This hampered them to become involved (10/12/14). When asking more questions about (in)equality between men and women they said that both men and women have an equal say in marriage arrangements. Also, before, they did not enjoy the rights their daughters have now because before, their parents did not allow them to go to school but rather kept them at home to do household chores. They however still feel as if their husbands do not take them seriously when women give their opinion in the house, they would just in the middle of a conversation leave the room for example (ibid.). One of the recently admitted members explains that she does not yet have an income of her own and that she is totally dependent of her husband; he keeps the money with him and decides what to spend it on. Another interesting thing this woman said was that she is pushed by her husband to work to make an income, just like the women that are already in the cooperative. She is asked to contribute income to the household. Gender roles are changing, in some cases the women are the main breadwinners and have to pay for the men instead of the other way around. Women are expected to be income earners now. Because of their own income, they do not have to wait for the men to give them money, but they can just take the kids to a festival for example and buy things for them. It gives them a higher sense of independence (ibid.).

In Rumira changes in gender relations are described as follows:

“Since we are knitting and making a little bit of money we are able to help our husbands a little bit. There is a little bit of change. And for example when I tell my husband that I have a meeting he will help with the kids and making dinner” (Gusta 05/01/15)

“The relation between men and women changed, before the men would discriminate us, but now they see us as equals. Before we were not allowed to go out of the house and work, but now we work as equals with them. We bring in money and maintain the household. So it has changed a lot” (Nadia 08/01/15)

When I asked her whether she thinks this is the same for all households in Rumira she said “yes, yes”. I asked her why she thinks so much has changed in the past years.

“I think because before there were only associations with men, but today, women are able to go outside, they can do things. Our husbands know this as well, they know we can get out and do things for ourselves. For this reason I think things have changed” (Nadia 08/01/15)

“Empowerment” is a word much used within ‘development’ circles. For FT as well, the empowerment of especially female producers stands high on the agenda. One of the first things I noticed during my time in the field however, was how not one woman understood what I was talking about when I introduced the word “empowerment”. When I tried to explain it during my interview with Jesusa, Hermenegilde and Doris, Jesusa responded with:

“It is important for us to work with the community as a whole because this was done by our forefathers as well who worked together, in Quechua we call this: Ayni. We don’t want people to have less than others; we want everyone to be equal” (27/11/14)

In Rumira, I asked Nadia if she feels more confident to speak out in her household and community she answered with “yes”. I asked her whether she thinks this is the case for the older generation as well.

“Yes, yes, older people as well give their opinion or decide things. Their opinion is respected as well. I feel more comfortable expressing my opinion in the cooperative and the community as a whole. You can give your opinion freely” (08/01/15)

The following example illustrates that even though women’s income increased, it’s still the men that determine their economic situation.

“The difference in material wellbeing between families, from my point of view, is determined by the husbands. The husbands play a fundamental role in these changes, because they are porters, and in some cases they have managed to be the cook. And maybe because of how they talk or their knowledge, they can become guides or owners of travel agencies. And because of doing these jobs, they have been able to improve their house. Like I told you, the changes in wellbeing between families are due to the husbands. Most of all because of the husbands, not the women. It is a form of competition between the husbands. For me, it is a form of

competition, who has more money, with whom is it going better you know, things like that. So, it is a form of competition, who wins, no? It is about who is better, the wives play no part in this” (Mercedes 16/01/15).

In the short amount of time I spend with Fanny, her family and the knitting group, I found that she and her husband took on very different roles, both in their physical activities as well as in their communication towards me. I made the following observations:

“In the couple days I was around Fanny and her family in Bolivia, I observed the household dynamic and was amazed by how heavy Fanny’s workload is, and how light that of her husbands’. In the mornings Fanny would wash, clean and prepare lunch for her husband, daughter and me. Then, when she is done cleaning the kitchen she sits behind her knitting machine and depending on the number of orders that have to be finished, stays there until (late in) the evening. Her husband Ricardo told me that he did “all sorts of things” for the knitting group, which he called their “family business” in which all the members of his family play their part. During my stay he would spend most of his time either relaxing, talking to me, or take new products to their store or Ayni Bolivia. In conversations between the three of us, Ricardo would, just like I saw the men doing in Patacancha, take the lead and tell me about his plans for the future of their small organization. With regard to their daughters’ that have moved out, Fanny told me that they had a hard time leaving home because “some men are bad and it’s not easy”. Luckily this is not the case for her daughter, but she tells me she knows of other examples where men would molest their wives” (observations by the author, January 2015)

Furthermore, by providing women with work in the knitting workshop, often those that do not have a husband, they hope to help the women and children in their community that face hardships in their lives. Fanny tells me that they want to do more to help the women and children in the future, maybe by setting up a daycare center or by organizing other activities for the children (27/01/16).

While limited by the amount of time I could spend with the female producers and their families, I hope to have grasped some of the complexity of social norms, roles and responsibilities that structure women’s relationships with the males in their live, and their sense of self-worth and overall well-being. The gender roles in Peru seemed to have changed over the past years; before, women would be locked up in their houses, now they undertake activities such as visiting the market, interact with people within and outside of their communities, girls get the chance to go to school, and they form part of a cooperative. However, when it comes to women’s freedom of choice and independent decision making,

79 these domains are still very much influenced by their male counterparts. Noticeable was the ‘disconnection’ I felt when talking about issues related to ‘empowerment’ and ‘gender equality’. Questions were often met with confusion and misunderstanding, which made me very aware of gender discourses formed at the global level that influence how we perceive the local. When analyzing the situation in line with Kabeer’s (1999) notion of empowerment, women’s agency is found to have increased and is challenging existing power relations to a certain extent. Because of their ability to gain an income for themselves, they feel a higher sense of purpose and independence, they have created more ‘wiggle room’ even though men often have the final say when it comes to making household decisions. When exploring their relation to resources in the more conventional economic sense, there has been a clear improvement in women’s access to economic resources as they now earn their own income. With regard to social resources, being part of a cooperative is found to strengthen their position as producers, as it gives them the option to work with international clients. About human resources we could say this includes their cultural heritage as it lays the base for the type of ‘ancestral knowledge’ that FT consumers are looking for in their products. Thus, here we could argue that by tapping into these resources, FT contributes to the idea that resources for development can by other than ‘natural’ or ‘material’. Thus, it seems that FT handicraft organizations do answer to some of their objectives when it comes to gender issues. When comparing this conclusion with those found in studies on Fairtrade (Hutchens, 2010; Lyon et al., 2010), it seems the artisanal sector provides women with more possibilities. This is no surprise seeing that all members in the cooperatives under research were women, as is the case in many other handicraft cooperatives. It would be interesting to see if and how dynamics change when men are part of handicraft cooperatives as well.

6. Discussion

In this part, multiple authors that are important in the conceptualization of the handicraft will be examined based on the data collected in the field. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss how their theoretical ideas can be made applicable to FT and create a deeper understanding of their work with handicrafts. It furthermore aims to tell something about the broader implications this has for the way we perceive and go about ‘development’. First, we will reflect on Appadurai’s (1986) ‘logic if diversion’, including the important additional arguments made by Kopytoff (1986) and Spooner (1986). The discussion then moves beyond their perspective to bring forward a more complex and encompassing view on the valuation of handicrafts in the 21st century. The next part takes us back to the idea of ‘diversion’, but suggests to use it in a different way.

6.1 Moving beyond the ‘logic of diversion’ With the ‘logic of diversion’ handicrafts are approached as objects that flow in and out of the commodity state. They are not ‘static’ things whose value is based on neoliberal laws. Rather, through their diversions from production to consumption they obtain social, cultural and economic values (Appadurai, 1986). We focus on their ‘social lives’, as the same thing may be treated as a commodity at one time and not at another. Or a thing may even be viewed as a commodity by one person and as something else by the next. It therefore remains vital to relate the ‘life of things’ to the way people, in different contexts, give meaning to them (Kopytoff 1986). Values obtained through processes of diversion takes us beyond neoliberal ideas of efficiency and ‘supply and demand’. We find that, different from other commodities, we not only need a supply of ‘things’, but more importantly, the supply of information about them (Spooner 1986). Supplying consumers with information by creating romanticized images of ‘authentic’ cultural practices is what FT is criticized for. Information gathered during the fieldwork period in Peru and Bolivia confirms the discrepancies that exist between FT’s global imagery and local realities (Dolan, 2010; Fisher, 2009; Moberg & Lyon, 2010). Putting emphasize on ‘diversions’ in the social lives of handicrafts gives us information on how and by whom value is created at these moments in time and space. In FTs early days, they represented handicrafts that were aesthetically more connected to the artisans and their cultural heritage. In this context, FT could be perceived as a middleman, taking the handicraft from one place to another. Here, Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’, can explain how the handicraft was invested with value by commoditizing the handicraft, followed by a process of decommodification and making it something ‘unique’ in a different context (1986).

However, Appadurai’s concept is limited when it comes to explaining the complexities of social realities in the 21st century. Female handicraft producers are participating in new relationships; new connections are formed with both human and non-human actors. When we follow the social life of FT handicrafts in Peru and Bolivia, their value takes shape through a process that includes weavers’, tourists’, consumers’, and FT institutions’ conceptualizations of what ‘Andeanness’ is. While occupying multiple geographic, economic and social spaces, these actors together construct ‘multiple authenticities’ of what Andean textiles are (Wood, 2008). Thus, rather than a ‘logic’, we are observing the formation of ‘assemblages’, described by De Landa (2006) as wholes composed of heterogeneous elements such as human and non-human, organic and inorganic, technical and natural that enter into relations with one another across diverse actors and vast distances (ibid.) In a time where globalization processes lead to an increasingly complex web of interactions between people and things, new materialist thinking has drawn the non-human dimension to the fore, raising questions about what this means for the social (e.g., De Landa, 2006; Ingold, 2011; Krarup & Blok, 2011). As we seek to overcome divisions of social–material, near–far and structure–agency, approaching the commoditization of handicrafts through ‘assemblage theory’ (De Landa, 2006), would “enable us to remain deliberately open to the form of the unity, its durability, the types of relations and the human and non-human elements involved” (Anderson & McFarlane, 2011, p. 124). This view corresponds with Krarup & Blok’s (2011) notions of inter-subjectivity37. Here, the term ‘quasi-actants’ is brought forward to represent a view on social reality that is more complex and dynamic than those comprised of ‘actants38’. The former encompasses human and non-human interactions and the interrelationship between subjects and objects. Inter-subjective relationships are not part of a fixed frame or bounded arena, rather they exist through interaction and connections, and that is where assemblages of values are created (ibid.). By putting forward a “theory of virtuality” our focus is brought to “the dimension of the actual which is not directly observable” (Krarup & Blok, 2011, p. 58). This approach links with the concept of ‘interface’ and its use in describing how mutations – of entities, actors’ subjectivities, etc. – confound established dichotomies to generate new external expressions of modernity (Arce & Long, 2000) . In terms of FT handicrafts this means that we go beyond the binaries and dichotomies that dictate the (economic) world. Taking the handicraft as ‘quasi-actant’ brings its multiple roles into view, as it can be

37 Inter-subjectivity refers to alliances that are formed at an interface whereby entities (‘real’ or not) construct, reconstruct and dismantle themselves as they cross each other’s boundaries to constitute new individualities, be this linguistic or corporeal, capable of generating a degree of power or potential (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988). 38 Actant refers to something that acts or to which activity is granted by others. It implies no special motivation of human individual actors, nor of humans in general. An actant can be anything provided it is granted to be the source of an action (Latour, 2005)

82 perceived as a commodity, as income, as part of ancient practices, as clothing, as a necessity etc. At the same time, the handicraft can ‘present’ itself in multiple forms; in terms of quality, design, style or usage. In each situation, the handicraft takes on different roles and affect actors in multiple ways. This works the other way around as well as every actor creates a unique connection to the handicraft. Thus, the handicraft is assembled through its interactions and depended on the co-existence of subject/object. In my view, this type of analysis is better able to explain ‘the social’, as it takes us beyond the portrayal of handicrafts as ‘things’ that move in and out of the commodity state.

6.2 From ‘logic of diversion’ to ‘diverted economy’ While Appadurai’s logic of diversion proofed limited in explaining the complex social dynamics that result from commoditization processes, the next part discusses how this concept can be used in a different way. There has been a lot of debate about where to position FT within the economic arena. While some argue that FT serves as an alternative to neoliberal market mechanisms, others criticize FT pursuing a market based solution for the very problems created by neoliberal ideas (Moberg & Lyon 2010). This research shows that FT gives female artisans the possibility to work in an economic environment that is not completely dominated by the capitalistic system. Rather than producing in the most efficient way possible, FT created a ‘niche’ where women handicraft producers can make a profit based on their link to ancestral culture and practices. Through FT a ‘diverted economy’ is constructed, where things are not completely commoditized. The workings of this ‘diverted economy’ becomes visible in Peru, where women in highland communities produce handicrafts in between their other activities as wives and mothers. Here, textiles are created that, when produced in a factory or by professional weavers, could be of better quality. However, because of their link to ‘ancient cultural practices’, the textiles they create are valued outside of the standard market domain. Thus, they can sell their products at a non-competitive price because of the story that is woven into their textiles. So, instead of judging touristic development and the work of FTOs as infringing on people’s ‘authenticities’ by reconstructing ‘unreal’ images for commercial purposes (Canessa, 2012; Wilson, 2010), these developments can be viewed as way to provide ‘services’ instead of ‘exploitation’. FT contributes to the idea that resources for development can be other than ‘natural’ or ‘material’ which has the possibility to change our perspective on development as it refines the need of the market. Thus, the significance of FT being there is that they found a niche within the economic system which tells us that although we live in an era of mass production, there are still realities where capitalism is not completely dominant. Tapping into these ‘diverted economies’, these dynamics sectors, can help us

83 move beyond neoliberal representations of development. Thus, developers should look for ‘diversions’ of the dominant economic process, and use the constructed niche realities for local development.

7. Conclusion

This study has explored FTs role in the commoditization of handicrafts. Here we looked at how their global values are being negotiated by local female handicraft producers in Peru and Bolivia. By analyzing the changing material of handicrafts as they move between people and are invested with different values, we aimed to uncover to what extent the women handicraft producers are changing as well. This research furthermore addressed in what way Appadurai’s (1986) ‘logic of diversion’ contributes to an understanding of contemporary manifestations of value. With this study, we tried to link production and consumption through the intangible interaction between objects and identities. In this vein the study has looked for an experience that has attempted to generate closer associations between producers and consumers. This conclusion is divided into five sections. The first three cover the research question that discusses FTs’ role as an alternative to the neoliberal market, and whether their work changes the ‘way of life’ of its producers. The fourth section corresponds with the second research question centering around the materiality of the handicraft. The final research question is answered in the fifth section which reflects on the usefulness of Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’. Together these perspectives provide us with insights in the valuation of FT among female handicraft producers in Peru and Bolivia.

7.1 ‘Logic of diversion’ in terms of the FT handicraft The first research question addresses whether FT activities acts as a counterwork to modernization and if it serves as an alternative to the dominant capitalistic market. This involves positioning FT within global commoditization processes as they incorporate both commercial and social aims. Here the question is: “To what extent is FT an association of consumer interest representing the ‘logic of diversion’ within the global process of commoditization?” To answer this question, we will start by analyzing what the ‘logic of diversion’ means in terms of FT handicrafts. Looking at its changing materiality and incorporation of multiple values as it goes through processes of commoditization is a central part of this. Through the initiation of the FT organization in Peru, crafts that were made and designed by the female artisans found their way to the conscious consumer. During that time, the women already produced some items for the occasional tourist, and those created for the FT market were similar. During his time, the material for consumers closely linked to what they made for themselves in terms of material and design. In this sense the mode of production and aesthetics of the material represented a clear link to the women and their ancestral roots.

For the tourist that visits the community and looks for textiles to buy, this link to ancestral history, represented in the handicraft, is what determines a large part of its value. Furthermore, to buy directly from the woman who made the product isn’t just about choosing something you like, it’s about the idea of supporting vulnerable women, acknowledging their skill and the hours of work they invested in making the product, to pay them a fair price. Thus, these objects don’t have a fixed value, and therefore neither a fixed commodity status. At the point of exchange, the woman names a price that for her represents the effort she put into making it, and the tourist decided whether he or she thinks it’s worth. Here, the tourist not only takes his or her desire for the objects’ aesthetics into consideration, but also the social value he or she invests the object with. When following these items in their trajectory from production to consumption, they move in and out the commodity state. Once sold, the objects are diverted from their original setting to eventually end up in someone’s home where it turns into something exotic, something ‘out of place’. Through this process the textile emanates uniqueness, an authentic object from another world made by someone who’s live hasn’t yet been overtaken by neoliberalism. When not a tourist, but a customer in a FT (web)store, FT plays to consumers’ ethical sensibility by facilitating a similar connection to the producer. Both website and store contain a lot of information on who these female producers are, what cultural practices they represent and how you, as a consumer, can help preserve their way of life and at the same time support women’s empowerment and gender equality. More than facilitating this connection, FT actively keeps the notion of ‘authentic craftsmanship’ alive to validate and sustain their position in the market. Thus, ‘authenticity’ needs to be a partial and intangible characteristic of these contemporary objects to feed and maintain consumers desire for the ‘natural’ and ‘authentic’. By marking products (through certification) as ‘authentic’, constructing ‘authentic’ images, and reintegrating ‘authentic’ practices, they set out the indicators that determine how handicrafts are valued. Certified handicrafts are valued for both their objective values as well as their subjective values; they can therefore never be fully commoditized, nor are they completely dislocated from the conventional market. FT operates in a separate domain market within the dominant neoliberal economy. In this domain, the idea of craftsmanship is to accept and make profit from things that are beautiful but not very practical; we don’t need handicrafts. This appears as an innovative marketing strategy, where the ‘cultural traditions’ of artisans are transformed into profitable enterprises through the added value that is found in the value of authenticity embedded in ethnic objects. At the same time, this causes a dilemma in how the (niche) economy operates; it is not based on efficiency, but on the logic of diverting commodities through certification, and by that reconstituting a sphere of intimacy and interesting aesthetic.

By framing the indicators for certification of certain FTOs and not others, FT constructs a distinction between the ‘authentic’ and ‘non-authentic’ handicraft. They create a ‘catalogue market’ which values those handicrafts that comply to their indicators, and at the same time devalues those that don’t. Competition between ‘authenticity’ – how to make sure something is authentic or not – is answered with certification. They furthermore invest the product with value based on its ‘fairness’, which not only reflects ‘fair’ pricing, but also links to social goals such as women’s empowerment. In this sense FT is supporting the creation of an elite through the implementation of standards’ certification. While FT is criticized for conveying a worldview that is far removed from the lived experienced, decision-making and social conditions of farmers and craftspeople (Fisher, 1997; Fisher, 2009; Getz & Shreck, 2006; Lyon, 2006), this study finds there to be a different side to the story. Through FTs marketing mechanisms, a niche is created where women handicraft producers can make a profit based on their ‘performed authenticity’. Within the structures of neoliberalism where things are not fully commoditized, ‘cultural heritage’ is created as a resource that woman handicraft producers can use to strengthen their social-economic position. Thus, despite the lack of a ‘real’ connection between producers and consumers, it can be argued that women handicraft producers can exercise their agency through these newly created relationships in the ‘economy of desire’, as it provides them access to market economies that would otherwise be difficult to penetrate. From this perspective, FT does serve as an alternative to the dominant capitalistic market.

7.2 From subjective to objective valuation of the FT handicraft During the course of this research, it was found that as the market for high-end fashion textiles and knitwear is growing, FT is currently forced to rethink its market strategy. Consumers are made more aware of exploitive practices and unsustainable modes of production in commercial markets, which increases the need for ‘environmentally friendly’ choices in the marketplace. Profit driven companies respond to this need by incorporating socially responsible practices in their current models. This new trend of combining Fair Trade principles with conventional trade, are the ones creating true changes according to Vania (V. Rivero, personal communication, January 30th, 2015). They implement both the philosophy, concepts and practices of FT in their cooperation with producers, as well as the administrative and commercial professionalization. The ‘traditional’ 20th century FT NGO model no longer respond to the demands of the 21st century market. The FTOs in Peru and Bolivia are very aware of this need for more professionalism as they are confronted by a lot of competition in the ‘new FT market’, where products are valued more for aesthetic quality than their ‘authentic’ validity. When products do not meet quality standards or consumer

87 preferences they become difficult to sell at high prices. Our data shows that the pressure to perform in line with these new standards is met with local struggles in some cases. Especially when it comes to correct measurement and time management the women face difficulties. This often corresponds with their inability to read and write and the fact they address notions of time and measurement in a different way. The latter often leads to miscommunication between the women and (Western) FTO staff, resulting in deadlines that aren’t being met, orders that are send back, and ultimately, money that is being lost. These struggles lead to tensions in the ‘social’. By portraying FT cooperatives as homogenous groups of socially and economically vulnerable women that possess unique weaving/knitting skills, FT is overlooking its influence on the underlying social relations. The effect of FT on persons is difficult to measure in economic value. FT handicraft certification promotes the creation of cooperatives; women are asked to organize themselves in a certain way which results in changing relations, roles and responsibilities. We witnessed the creation of a new social environment through FT. In Patacancha, working together in a cooperative makes underlying differences between the women visible. Here two generations are divided; the elder illiterate women don’t feel the drive, or are afraid, to move forward, while the younger women do. Thus, while FT has a liberating effect on the younger generation, the older generation perceive certain changes as negative. Next to that, communication between the women is lacking and feelings of companionship are missing. While part of a cooperative, the women don’t work together as a group but rather fend for themselves and their families. The possibility to earn money is what drives them. This is also why the initiation of a second cooperative in Patacancha led to feelings of displeasure as it cost them orders. More positive social changes are found in Rumira and Huilloc, here the groups are smaller and better organized. They are more experienced with working for Western organizations and understand what is expected of them. In the knitting workshop in Bolivia, Fanny runs a tight ship; the women are on the same page when it comes to work ethics and have learned to deal with market pressures. Because of this they can successfully comply to customers’ demands.

7.3 Women’s empowerment and gender equality FT’s goal of empowering women is mainly measured in terms of economic improvement. In both Bolivia and Peru, we found that the economic benefits received through collaboration with FT is improving the lives of the female handicraft producers and their children in a direct way. To see however if FT makes a difference at a deeper social level, and whether social structures are changing because of it, we applied Kabeers’ (1999) theoretical notion on women’s empowerment. Here both the ability to make strategic life choices and the complex social norms, roles and responsibilities are taken into account.

While I wasn’t able to fully penetrate the communities’ social complexities, some important observations were made. Interestingly the women never heard of the word ‘empowerment’ before and couldn’t tell me what it represented for them. Explaining notions of empowerment to the women in terms of their ability to exercise choice, make independent decisions, hold certain rights, led to a lot of confusion, and reluctance to talk about it. For me this word became the embodiment of a disconnection between two life worlds, where global ideas on empowerment are not taking local social realities into account. While processes of globalization and the work of FT has led to improvements for women, at the end of the day men still have the final say. On the positive side, it was found that women in Peru gained the ability to go outside more freely, meet with other women, earn their own money, go to school, and have the men help them out with their children. Gender inequality is however still very present; when it comes to making most choices for themselves and their family, it is still the men who decide. The income earned by women is perceived as something extra and therefore a dependency on their husbands remains. During my fieldwork, I was continuously made aware of the unequal relations between man and women; whenever a man was present he would take over the conversation and the woman would remain quiet. In Bolivia as well I noticed this male dominance. Here, I soon understood that Fanny took care of all household chores on top of her work in the knitting workshop, while her husband was hanging around running some errands and talking to me. Thus, despite positive changes partly created by Fair Trade, data shows that gender inequality is still very much rooted in these women’s lives.

7.4 Intertwining ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ practices in women’s production of the handicraft With the second research question we tried to find how the female producers incorporate globalization in their everyday lives by focuses on the ambiguity between local resistances against processes of commoditization and processes of appropriation on the other hand. Here we ask: “how do ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ practices intersect and intertwine in women’s everyday production of the handicraft?”. By looking at the way in which new values are materialized in the handicraft, this thesis has tried to uncover women’s subjectivities; their feelings toward the new materiality and the extent to which they are playing to both ‘traditional’ and ‘commercial’ values. In Peru, weaving and knitting is a way for women to continue part of their ancestral legacy, at the same time it moves them into a different direction as FT connects them to the global market for handicrafts. FT is reinventing authentic products and processes by restoring natural dye processes,

89 investing in women’s weaving skills, and creating new products and designs. This new materiality is linked to a constructed notion of ‘authenticity’ that portrays female handicraft producers as the embodiment of old traditions and unique talent. This has led to multiple material changes that reflect an assemblage of value that is both multiple and specific. Exposure to modern elements in women’s lives are visualized in the materiality they make for themselves. By replacing the alpaca wool with synthetic wool, and by assimilating foreign objects into the material, modern and traditional elements are both literally and figuratively interwoven into their everyday lives. Traditional garments such as the poncho, lliklla and polleras, are reshaped into material that links to their past as well as their future. Furthermore, new items, such as a modern style hat, are finding their way into the communities. Another striking change is the popularity of pink among the younger women. This visualizes the gap that exists between generations; processes of globalization led to a situation where most of the younger women are literate and have been subjected to modernism to a greater extent than their mothers and grandmothers. A third diversion in the aesthetics of handicraft material is found in the items made for tourists. Both in Peru and Bolivia, the women design and produce textiles they sell to tourists themselves. Here the materiality is heavily influenced by consumers’ ‘search for authenticity’ in the production of handicrafts. This leads to a situation where the women start formulating ideas about the taste of potential customers and modify their material accordingly. This exemplifies the need for a commodity to be contradictory (both modern and traditional elements) to achieve a value that is both multiple and specific. In Peru, it was found that in general, women value the sale of textiles for its economic improvement rather than as a preservation of their traditions. They play more to the consumer than trying to give a fair representation of their cultural history. Thus, based on this data we could argue that weaving is still an expression of ancestral heritage and that women invest their personal woven items with care and meaning. At the same time, by incorporating modern elements in the material, it moves them into the future. This represents how they increasingly interact with globalization processes. Rather than being overtaken by these processes, the women consciously choose what to take and what not. At the same time, the research data leads us to believe that those items made for sale have become very commercially oriented. Here the material gets adjusted to consumer’s notion of ‘authenticity’, and more recently, to consumer’s expectations in terms of quality and design. In Bolivia, the women solely produce textiles with the purpose of selling them. However, compared to Peru, these items are invested with a lot of care and leave the women with feelings of pride. This, together with the recognition they receive for their hard work, not just in terms of money, is what creates value for them. These feelings are represented in their perfectly measured textiles, where

90 every small detail is double checked. In contrast, the textiles in Peru lack this type of care and quality which expresses the struggles in social dynamics that play out underneath. It furthermore represents the disconnectedness between global ideas on quality, time-management, efficiency etc., and local realities.

7.5 Usefulness Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’ The third question discusses to what extent Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’ (1986) contributes to an understanding of contemporary manifestations of value. Here we ask: “Do we need the ‘logic of diversion’ to explain local dynamics at the social level, or is the ambiguity enough to explain these processes? The answer to this question lies in the analysis of these diversions in terms of the handicraft. According to the ‘logic of diversion’, an objects’ authentic value of is formed by diverting it from its original setting to a new place where it turns into something ‘unique’ and ‘exotic’. Following an objects biography, aware of its diversion as it moves from one place to the other, changes in status/value are visualized. By focusing on the moment that an object gets diverted, we can see by who and in what way the object is invested with multiple values based on actor’s subjectivities. In this sense, Appadurai’s ‘logic of diversion’ was found to be helpful in explaining local dynamics at the social level. But, where is the ‘logic’ in these ‘diversions’? When we think of it as the process of diverting commodities, and at the same time creating value, then there is not one ‘logic’ that describes this. Rather, we are observing an assemblage, where exchange relations lead to different notions of authenticity and value that directs us to an understanding of consumers as active entities. They are attributing value to places they cannot control or existentially know, distant points of intensity they cannot directly experience. This has created a kind of ‘virtual reality’ (beyond the idea of a market), where authenticity means something different for women producers, and the consumers of handicrafts. The ideas created in this virtual reality seep back into women producers’ lives which results in a situation where they adjust their handicrafts accordingly. Thus, the data shows us that in current globalization processes, the situation is more complex. The outflow of values attached to FT handicrafts through processes of diversion, at the same time ‘flow’ back into the producers’ lives in the form of ‘constructed notions of authenticity’ and other expectations in terms of quality and design. This exemplifies the complex ways in which handicrafts and the social and cultural settings in which they are produced, come to be, and are mutually constituted in multiple localities. This complexity goes beyond what can be explained with Appadurai’s logic of diversions, as it does not take into account that objects, such as the Andean handicraft, are made a certain way to enhance its (FT) market value. Thus, before it gets ‘diverted’ the object is already invested with new

91 values. Processes of commoditization lead to a situation where FT handicraft producers market their ethnicity, their culture as a commodity, partly as a result of our search for authenticity in their crafts. For this reason, we can question to what extent the value of authenticity is not in a logic of diversion, but rather in producers’ ambiguity for their creativity to actualize through exchange relations. Here the market is not understood as a set of norms and rules, but rather as a global institution.

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Appendix A: Fieldwork activities & respondents

DATE RESEARCH WHERE WHAT/WHO METHOD(S) 15-12-13 to Participant ASARBOLSEM, Two different Christmas Fairs and 31-12-13 observations El Alto, La Paz during an activity at the ASARBOLSEM store/office 30-10-14 Participant Patacancha Weekly meeting Patacancha observations 03-11-14 Participant Puente Inca Conducting surveys for Awamaki’s observations M&E program 05-11-14 Interview Awamaki office Ivy (Creative Director) 06-11-14 Participant Patacancha Dyeing yarn workshop observations 08-11-14 to Participant Patacancha “Weaving Immersion Weekend” 10-11-14 observations 12-11-14 Participant Rumira Conducting surveys for Awamaki’s observations M&E program 13-11-14 Participant Patacancha Conducting surveys for Awamaki’s observations M&E program 14-11-14 to Participant Patacancha GPS weekend 16-11-14 observations 18-11-14 to Participant Cusco Centro de Textilo 19-11-14 observations 20-11-14 Interview Puente Inca Sylvia 21-11-14 Participant Kelkanka Conducting surveys for Awamaki’s observations M&E program 24-11-14 Group interview Huilloc Exaltacion, Virginia and Simeona 27-11-14 Group interview Patacancha Jesusa, Hermenegilde and Doris 28-11-14 Participant Huilloc Conducting surveys for Awamaki’s observations M&E program 05-12-14 Interview Awamaki office Martha (Production coordinator and part of Rumira cooperative) 10-12-14 Focus group Huilloc 10 women of the cooperative and 4 discussion women that wanted to become part the cooperative were present 18-12-14 Participant Patacancha Conducting surveys for Awamaki’s observations M&E program 05-01-15 Interview Rumira Gusta 08-01-15 Interview Rumira Nadia Sylvia

10-01-15 Interview and Patacancha Felicitas (and husband) participant observations 11-01-15 Interview and Patacancha Helena participant observations 12-01-15 Participant Patacancha Conducting surveys for Awamaki’s observations M&E program 14-01-15 Participant Rumira EF group observations 16-01-15 Interview Awamaki office Mercedes (Women's Artisanal Cooperatives Coordinator) 19-01-15 Focus group Patacancha 30 women of the cooperative were discussion present 20-01-15 Short interview Awamaki office (Young) Felicitas 26-01-15 to Interview and Knitting workshop Fanny and Ricardo 29-01-15 participant El Alto, La Paz observations 30-01-15 Interview Ayni Bolivia, La Vania Paz

Background information on interviewed women handicraft producers

Name Cooperative Background information Silvia Puente Inca Born in 1972, has 2 children and works as a “juicer” at the market in Ollantaytambo Exaltacion Huilloc Born in 1983, married with three children Virginia Huilloc Born in 1988, married with two children and president of the cooperative Simeona Huilloc Born in 1950, married with three children Jesusa Patacancha Born in 1992, married with three children Hermenegilde Patacancha Born in 1991, single, no children and finance controller at the cooperative Doris Patacancha Born in 1983, married with three children and quality controller of the cooperative Felicitas Patacancha Born in 1984, married with three children Helena Patacancha Born in 1983, married with four children Gusta Rumira Born in 1977, married with three children Nadia Rumira Born in 1986, separated with two children Alicia Rumira Born in 1972, separated with two children Martha Rumira Born in 1982, married with three children and Production Coordinator at Awamaki since April 2014

Fanny Knitting Born in 1986, married with four children and leader of the workshop El knitting workshop Alto

Background information on interviewed professionals

Name Organization Background information Ivy Awamaki, Peru Creative director from 2013 to 2015 Mercedes Awamaki, Peru Women’s cooperative coordinator since January 2012 Vania Ayni Bolivia, Bolivia Executive director

Appendix B: Interview questions

1. What (clothing) items do you make for yourself? Que artículos de vestir hace para ti misma? 2. Why these items? What is the (hi)story behind each item? Por que estos artículos? 3. Can you explain the Pallay on your Lliklla? Puede explicar las Pallays en tu Lliklla? 4. Can you describe the value you attach to this personal item? Puedes describir el valor que tu le pones a este objeto personal? 5. Where do you find the inspiration for the use of these patterns/colors? De donde viene tu inspiracion de usar estos pallay y colores? 6. How are these patterns/colors in your textiles changing? Como esta cambiando los colores que tu usas en tus tejidos? o For example through the influence of: Por ejemplo atravez de la influencia de: . Interaction with tourists Interacción con turistas . Awamaki’s designs Diseños de Awamaki 7. How would you describe the difference between the textiles you make for yourself, those for tourists and those for Awamaki? With regard to: Como describes la diferencia entre los textiles que haces para ti misma, los textiles para turistas, y los textiles para awamaki? o Pallay/color/kind of item/use purpose Pallay/color/tipo de cosa/utilidad o propósito o Cultural value Valor cultural o Economic value Valor económico 8. How would you describe the changes that are taken place within your community as a result of your connection to Awamaki, in terms of: Como describes los cambios que están pasando en tu comunidad como resultado a tu conexión con awamaki? Por ejemplo o Social relations Relaciones sociales . Between women within the cooperative/entre mujeres en la cooperativa:  Growing stronger/further apart (income difference?) Mas fuerte/menos fuerte (las diferencias de ingreso?) . With women outside of the cooperative Mas fuerte/menos fuerte (las diferencias de ingreso?) . Between men and women/entre hombres y mujeres:  Are men becoming more involved in what has been a “women’s tradition” (weaving)? Tiene hombres más interesa a tejer ahora?  More gender (in)equality in terms of/Los cambios personal, por ejemplo:

o decision making within household mas abilidades para hacer decisions en el hogar o growing confidence mas confianca o stronger position in household/community/Un posicion mas fuerte en el hogar/la communidad o How has the cooperative changed over time? Tell me about its history? Como ha cambiado la cooperativa, que es la historia? o How dependable is your income; is there a lot variation each month? Hay mucha variedad en tu ingreso?

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Appendix C: Topics Focus Group discussion

Changes in livelihoods/community

- Economic - Social o empowerment o gender equality o interactions/relationships/communication o difference between generations

Fair Trade

- Knowledge about FT - Feelings toward FTO - Experiences - Ambitions

Handicraft

- Changing material - Feelings towards (new) material - Value - Link to identity

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Appendix D: Fieldwork experience

Bolivia Part I: December 15th – 25th, 2013 In December 2013, I had my first encounter with a group of artisans working with a FT handicraft organization in La Paz, Bolivia. I found these organizations through the WFTO website, and after months of research preparations, followed by an intensive Spanish language course (in Cochabamba), it was time to take the first step. Once arrived in La Paz, I nervously called Antonia to set up a meeting. She talked very fast and after a couple “puede repetir por favor?” (Can you repeat that please?), I understood that she wanted me to come to one of the Christmas fairs where they were selling FT handicrafts. This fair was downtown, and of course, I got lost. A feeling of failure started creeping up on me. After multiple calls, she told me to wait at a street corner. After a brief wait, her son came to pick me up. He walked me over to the fair where everyone was preparing for the fair. At the stall I met one of the artisans and a Japanese volunteer that had been working with Antonia and her organization, ASARBOLSEM, for the past eight months. I started to help decorate the stall, while asking the volunteer some questions. The volunteer spoke good Spanish, but I immediately turned to English, because I felt insecure about my own Spanish abilities. After an hour or so Antonia came by. I introduced myself and, as I already noticed on the phone, she seemed to have a very extrovert personality and a busy schedule. It overwhelmed me a bit, mainly because I couldn’t quite keep up with her, nor could I respond with the same fierceness in Spanish. I felled handicapped because of my inability to communicate fluently in Spanish. Before Antonia left, she invited me to come to a larger fair in El Alto the coming weekend. Her son volunteered to travel there with me from La Paz. After saying goodbye to Antonia, I stayed at the fair with the artisan. She told me that she had been working with Antonia already for a very long time. She lives alone in El Alto and doesn’t have kids. She feels lonely and afraid sometimes. That weekend, I met Antonia’s son again and together we took a ‘trufi’39 to El Alto. It brought us back into the chaos of traffic and people I witnessed when arriving in La Paz by plain two months earlier. El Alto is located on the Altiplano highlands, adjacent to the city of La Paz. It is one of Bolivia’s largest and fast-growing urban centers. The area is very dry and there is almost no tree or strip of green grass to be found, which gives the place a certain “roughness” and “cold” feeling to it.

39 A ‘trufi’ is a mini bus recognizable by the number or name of the route it is driving. It is the most common way of transportation in cities like La Paz

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The fair in El Alto was much bigger and housed stalls with items that ranged from Christmas decorations to car tires. ASARBOLSEM had one of the bigger stalls, where four female artisans were there to help customers. A large billboard hung on the wall with the name and logo of ASARBOLSEM and the WFTO trade mark on it. I stayed there for a couple hours while people walked in and tried on sweaters, hats and gloves. I made some small gestures of support to help the artisans, like offering coffee etc., and I asked them some simple questions about themselves and their family. They were quite reluctant to talk to me, which I interpreted more as a sense of insecurity than anything else. I found it important to be there, show my face, and help them, so that they would hopefully be open to my questions at a later stage. A couple days later Antonia called me to ask if I wanted to come to their office/shop in El Alto, because there would be some festivities. I thought this would be another great way to get to know more about the artisans, and a way for them to get familiarized with me. This time, there was no one to take me, so I had to figure out myself how to get to their premises, which I found later, was positioned in El Alto’s deep cartography, and therefore not easy to find. After multiple ‘trufi’s’, phone calls, and some moments of doubt and fear, I arrived at the office. It was a nice multiple floor building with a large shop, meeting room, a couple small bedrooms, a kitchen, a big terrace and a large garage. In the meeting room a big picture of Evo Morales decorated the wall, next to the indigenous flag. In the large garage, several bags of rice and sugar were piled up next to large plastic Coca-Cola bottles with vegetable oil inside and boxes of ‘Paneton’40. Each artisan could come and collect these items, together with a monetary Christmas bonus. I stayed here the whole morning as I helped women put all the heavy items in their carrying cloth. Afterwards, there were sausages, potatoes and corn for lunch. During lunch Antonia gave a short speech in which she addressed her gratitude to the artisans. I arranged with Antonia that I would come back after the holidays to stay with some of the artisans and conduct my fieldwork. Unfortunately I had to return home because my grandfather had suddenly passed away. During my stay in La Paz I also met with another WFTO certified organization, called Ayni Bolivia. They responded to my emails a couple weeks earlier, and one day in December I went to see Vania and her husband Eduardo in their store in the center of La Paz. Vania initiated Ayni Bolivia, and she manages its daily operations. Eduardo assists her and is part of the WFTO Latin America board, where he is responsible for monitoring activities. Again, I was quite nervous before meeting these new people. I had communicated with Eduardo in English, but Vania only spoke Spanish. They were both in the store waiting for some of the artisans they work with to come and deliver their products. I started asking Vania some questions and she happily answered them. It appeared that she was very critical of

40 Literally translated as ‘large bread’, and sold during Christmas time

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WFTO. At one point, she asked one of the artisans, “do you think you get enough money for this piece of work? Don’t be shy”. The women answered “no”. Vania explained to me that this was because FT retailers (like Ten Thousand Villages and Traidcraft) constantly pressure them to lower their prices. If they don’t accept this, the women can’t sell their products and remain empty handed. This for her was one of the central issues of FT. I stayed in the store for about two hours and asked whether I could talk with some of their artisans in the next weeks. They reacted positive to my request and promised to help me get into contact with the artisans. I enjoyed my conversation with Vania, and throughout the following year, while I was back in Holland, there were some emails back and forth in which I informed them about my plans to come back to Bolivia. They never stopped helping me. This is also why, when I got back, more than a year later, it was Ayni Bolivia that I contacted, because I knew they would help me get in touch with some of their artisans. This is how I met Fanny and her family in January 2015.

Part II: January 26th – 29th, 2015 Fanny’s husband, Ricardo, came to pick me up in front of the Anyi Bolivia store. Together we took the newly build cable-car from the center of La Paz up to EL Alto. Now, a year later, it felt weird to be back in this place. At the same time, I felt quite comfortable, because, this time the place wasn’t new to me, and besides, I felt stronger as a person, because of the personal development I had gone through over the past year. Fanny and her family are living in one of the best neighborhoods of El Alto, as it is explained to me by Ricardo: “It is quiet, clean and close to the city. What more do you want?” When we arrived at their house, I was warmly welcomed by Fanny and their youngest daughter. Their other daughters are already married and they have moved out of the house a year or two ago. Fanny and Ricardo seemed very happy to have me as a guest; they explained that their house had turned quiet with the departure of two of their daughters. The house consists of a tiny kitchen, a living room, two small bedrooms and a bathroom. Behind that is a newly build 2 storage building that contains the knitting workshop on the ground floor, and two bedrooms and a living quarter on the first floor. I can still smell the paint in the guest bedroom they have prepared for me. It felt good to be there, although it was sometimes hard to adjust to yet another new environment. To be in a house with people that are strange to you and to put most of your personal space and time aside to become part of their life is a significant experience. Fanny and her family were very nice to me, they told me all about their work, cooked for me, took me to their own little shop in the center and walked with me through El Alto’s geographical labyrinths. While the situation in the knitting group was good, they are always looking for more work. One of their older daughters studied graphic design and the other one was studying international business.

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While both Fanny and Ricardo were satisfied about their working relation with Ayni Bolivia, they wanted to make a step forward. They were hoping to export products directly to clients. So after I told them I liked their products and I thought that there would be a market for them in Holland, it was more or less all they wanted to talk about. This was sometimes hard to deal with, because, I wanted to help them, but I couldn’t give them any guarantees. Especially Ricardo started to put so much emphasis on this, that at the end I felt a bit cramped and wanted to get away from the house. He was getting too much into my space and I felt they only viewed me as a means to an end. A position I could understand very well. This is how I often felt in Peru, when talking with women and conducting interviews and observations, I felt guilty that I was only using them for my own research purposes, not able to give anything back.

Peru October 20th – January 20th 2014/2015 I left for Peru with mixed feelings, on the one hand excited to be going on another adventure, but at the same time it was hard to leave home now that everything had been going so well. I choose to shift my focus from Bolivia to Peru for two reasons, first of all I wanted to start with a fresh slate since my previous experience in Bolivia had some sort of an unhappy blanket over it, and second of all because I found a FT organization that works with indigenous women that live in small highland villages, which I thought would be even more interesting for my research. What I found hard in Bolivia last year was to get into contact with the artisans, that’s why I choose to volunteer for this organization in Peru as well, to make use of their connections and give myself a more ‘natural’ reason to visit the communities (as part of the FT organization). This for me, felt like the only way I could get into close contact with the women in the highland communities. The first week in my homestay in Ollantaytambo I felt homesick and alone. Luckily this passed once I gave myself some time to adjust to the new environment. What stayed was the fear of failing the research, during the three months I was there, there was always this voice in my head saying: “you need to do more, the information you have is not enough, you need to break through more barriers”. But, on the other hand there was this feeling of me imposing on the women, taking up their time without giving them anything in return. In short, I was always juggling between the need for information, and not wanting to impose myself on these women’s lives. It helped me when they would feel free to ask me some questions as well. This made it less one-sided and sometimes had the effect that the women would open up a bit more. The first time I really talked with the women was during my work as a Monitoring and Evaluation volunteer. I soon found that the questions on the survey were not connecting at all to their ‘reality’. Words like ‘empowerment’, ‘capacities’, ‘decision-making power’ and even ‘Fair Trade’ did not ring a

105 bell for them. This led to a process of reflecting on these surveys and their value for the FT organization. It was a good way for me to become aware of the situation and make sure that my interview questions would be adjusted to this. While I felt a lot more comfortable speaking Spanish than I did in Bolivia, language was still one of the main barriers I encountered in the field. In the highland communities, most women only speak Quechua, many understand Spanish, but they are afraid to speak it. This was different for the other communities near Ollantaytambo, here everyone speaks Spanish, and it was me that had to search for words. I also noticed that the women in Patacancha generally felt ashamed of their inability to communicate and therefore held back in conversations. It was hard to decide how far to ‘push’ for information and when to stop. I’m glad on the other hand that this experience taught me how to deal with difficult situations, as I found that conducting interviews is not a straightforward process, but one in which you need to be very flexible and inventive to make people feel comfortable talking to you. This was especially true in places like Patacancha, here I noticed that when a man was around he would immediately take over the conversation. In comparison to the women, men are very talkative and don’t miss an opportunity to ask questions and tell me about their ideas for things that relate to the work of the FT organization.

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