Rachel Barber Rachel Barber is a Ph.D. student in Social Sciences at the ciesas-West. Her doctoral thesis research focuses on the new labor relations and practices of Tsotsil and Tseltal embroiderers and weavers in Los Altos de Chiapas. She has made several short documentaries about the artisans of Los Altos that have been shown in international film festivals. She is interested in the topics of material culture, social change and anthropology of work, and incorporates documentary and audiovisual methods in ethnographic study.

EncArtes multimedia

Being a craftswoman: a job among others. An ethnographic video about the work rhythms of a Tseltal embroiderer.

  • Rachel Barber

Images and descriptions of textile craft production in Mexico, largely created for commercial purposes or to document projects with social impact, often emphasize the ancestral character of the craft or its usefulness in cultivating the empowerment of women artisans on their way to a better future. However, both approaches ignore the concrete ways in which women work in their daily lives. This short film, which portrays a day in the life of Antonia, a Tseltal embroiderer from the municipality of Tenejapa, in the highlands of Chiapas, seeks to paint a more accurate portrait of the place of craft production in the daily lives of women artisans.

Discrepancias

Debates on Cultural Heritage and the Commercialization of Collective Expressions

  • Aura Cumes
  • Jesús Antonio Machuca Ramírez
  • Suely Kofes
  • Xóchitl Eréndira Zolueta Juan

  • moderator Rachel Barber

In the last decade, a wave of accusations has been launched against brands and companies for using cultural elements of indigenous groups. In Mexico, several cases have had considerable resonance: the complaint by the Mixe community of Tlahuitoltepec against the French company Isabel Marant for copying its Xaam nïxuy blouse; the protest by the Secretary of Culture, Alejandra Frausto, against the fashion house of Carolina Herrera for the use of embroidery from Tenango de Doria and the sarape from Saltillo; and on three different occasions the fashion clothing company Zara has been accused of plagiarism for using designs from Aguacatenango, Chiapas.