Pink Gold
Women, Shrimp, and Work in Mexico
María L. Cruz-Torres (Author)
9781477328019, University of Texas Press
Hardback, published 5 December 2023
384 pages, 14 b&w photos, 1 map
22.9 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.454 kg
Pink Gold is a splendid narrative about how a Mexican underclass, the subaltern Changueras of MazatlÁn, forged a union and created a market based on a local commodity, local social processes, and public space. Pink Gold refers to the commodity 'shrimp,' but it also embodies the women changueras (shrimp vendors) who persevered despite global and neoliberal processes impinging on their livelihoods. . . . Perhaps the most enduring aspect of Pink Gold is the heart underlying the social science, as evident in the descriptive elegance in tales of these women. Pink Gold is full of corazÓn and care. It is a tribute to the changueras, but also the work of MarÍa L. Cruz-Torres.
(American Anthropologist) Through a close understanding of the lives of these women, Cruz-Torres addresses interconnections between gender and labour as well as the politics of resistance and survival in an industry traditionally understood as male-dominated....provides a valuable account of women’s participation in informal economies in the Global South....This work [is] both original and ground-breaking.
(Latin American Review of Books) By situating her study at the crossroads of feminist political economy and multisited ethnography, Cruz-Torres uncovers lives that too often remain in the shadows...This engrossing read, written in accessible prose, will appeal to a wide variety of [readers].
(Conservation and Society) Cruz-Torres adds nuance to the scholarship on feminist political ecology by emphasizing how class and culture shape women’s struggles; she contributes to the scholarship on the social relations of commodities in which marketing shifts from men’s to women’s work as products enter global markets...In this beautifully written ethnography, we see the ethnographer working ethically alongside her interlocutors, to whom she promised this book.
(Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos) It is likely that I will never pass a female street vendor again, in Latin America or elsewhere, without thinking of MarÍa Cruz-Torres’ insightful and beautifully written monograph...[which is] a fine-grained, intersectional analysis of the interplay between gender and class in Mexican and Latin American household organizations, social relations, public spheres, and street level economies.
(Economic Anthropology) This book is a valuable resource.
(Political Ecology) For scholars and students of Mexico, as well as anyone interested in food production and supply chains, informal economies, or gendered labor relations, this is a must-read ethnography.
(Exertions: Web Publication for Society for the Anthropology of Work)
A rich, long-term ethnography of women seafood traders in Mexico.
The "shrimp ladies," locally known as changueras in southern Sinaloa, Mexico, sell seafood in open-air markets, forming an extralegal but key part of the economy built around this "pink gold.” Over time, they struggled to evolve from marginalized peddlers to local icons depicted in popular culture, even as they continue to work at an open-air street market.
Pink Gold documents the shrimp traders' resilience and resourcefulness, from their early conflicts with the city, state, and federal authorities and forming a union, to carving out a physical space for a seafood market, and even engaging in conflicts with the Mexican military. Drawing from her two decades of fieldwork, MarÍa L. Cruz-Torres explores the inspiring narrative of this overlooked group of women involving grassroots politics, trans-border and familial networking, debt and informal economic practices, personal sacrifices, and simple courage. She argues that, amid intense economic competition, their success relies on group solidarity that creates interlocking networks of mutual trust, or confianza, that in turn enable them to cross social and political boundaries that would typically be closed to them. Ultimately, Pink Gold offers fresh insights into issues of gender and labor, urban public space, the street economy, commodities, and globalization.
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Amber Sunsets and Pink Gold
- Chapter 1. Contested Grounds: Women Shrimp Traders and Street Economies
- Chapter 2. On Becoming Changueras: Gendered Livelihoods and Contested Identities
- Chapter 3. The Street of the Women Shrimp Traders: Learning the Tricks of the Trade in Space and Place
- Chapter 4. Here We Are Like a Family: The Complexity of Social Relations
- Chapter 5. The Culture and Economy of Pink Gold: The Meanings, Processes, and Values of Shrimp
- Chapter 6. Sometimes We Work Just to Pay Our Debts: Informal Credit and Savings Systems
- Chapter 7. From Outcasts to Icons: Women Shrimp Traders and Expressive Culture
- Conclusion: Feminist Political Ecology, Ethnography, and Uncovering Lived Realities
- References
- Index
