Mujeres en la cocina de la mayordomía. Prestigio y costumbre en la mixteca de Oaxaca

Abstract

In this article I explain how women are re-elaborating certain practices and social spaces tied to notions of “la costumbre” —custom—, as a way to gain access to communitarian prestige and recognition in light of changes to social, ritual and political organization in a municipality from the Oaxacan Mixtec region. Taking into account an old feminist anthropology concern about the gender system as a prestige system, I question the rigidity of the power and prestige structure conferred upon gender relationships within cargo systems and I show the relevance of what are considered to be “domestic” activities in the construction of intimate communitarian spaces that women have created via the reproduction of a relevant rituality in the construction of contemporary communities. I observed how women use the concept of “la costumbre” to claim a type of symbolic capital that helped them prepare for and participate in other communitarian decision-making spaces, such as village assemblies.