"Taking care of the palm": spatiality of practices around the selection, collection and preparation of material for weaving carried out by Qom women artisans

Abstract

The Qom are a group centered on the urban fringes of the municipality of Santa Fe, Argentina. Two communities are located in this area, the Qom Las Lomas community and the Qomlashi Lma Nam Qom community (also known as Santo Domingo). The women of both communities perform various tasks of basketry with a natural fiber called palm. Some of them are grouped under the form of a cultural work cooperative, which bears the name of Qom Alphi.

These indigenous artisans have been developing different productive and reproductive tasks that can be thought of from categories such as spatial practices. These practices materially and symbolically configure the territories they inhabit. In turn, these territories can be integrated into a broader structure that makes it possible to understand the spatial circuits of palm production.

Under this analytical scheme, the present work gives an account of the spatial production practices of the group of women that make up the cooperative, with main emphasis on what could be considered the beginning of the circuit: search, selection and preparation of the material for weaving. In this instance we recognize the coexistence of productive and reproductive times, which are difficult to dissociate. To do this, following the geographies of everyday life, it focuses on two spacial dimensions: displacements and practices anchored in the place. However, the analysis does not end there, since it makes them dialogue with other visions on spatial practices such as those of Lopes de Souza (2013).

This work aims to account for the spatiality of the practices associated with the supply and preparation of the material, for which it uses methodologically the ethnographic record made during work days accompanying the women in their tasks, as well as the use of semi-structured interviews.