"Strong Women" and "Pretty Girls": Self-Provisioning, Gender, and Class Identity in Rural Galicia (Spain)

Abstract

In this article I examine expressions of class and gender identity in a worker-peasant community in rural Galicia (Spain). While men who have worked for decades in migrant destinations define their own class positionality partly through reference to the unpaid, subsistence work that is performed mainly by women who remain in the community, these same women adeptly code switch between strong woman and 'pretty girl demeanors through their work activities, dress, and use of domestic spaces. Using the example of ethnographic data from this one part of rural Europe, 1 argue for the broader importance of anthropologists considering how laboring bodies become gendered; the intersections between gender and class identities; and connections among mixed livelihood strategies, the continuity of self-provisioning activities, and resistance to fully commoditized consumption. [Key words: class and gender identity, Galicia, Spain, unpaid provisioning work, consumption]