Stilling: forsker
Telefon: 55 58 39 73
E-post: Cecilie.Odegaard@sosantr.uib.no
Besøksadresse: Christiesgt. 13
My postdoctoral project is called ”The Moralization and Gendering of Markets: Informal Trade in Peru”, and deals with trade at the margins of the formal economy in Peru as well as the smuggling of goods across the border from Bolivia. The project addresses questions related to authority, sociality and communal work in market associations, and how traders negotiate the access to land and to markets vis-à-vis local authorities and the state. Being concerned especially with the majority of women in these trading activities, the project explores the significance of gender for how trade is actualized and represented, contested and legitimized. Of particular significance for the project are questions of trust and distrust between traders and in relation to the authorities, involving accusations of corruption and the use of brujería (harmful acts). The project is also concerned with state policies and the authorities’ often contradictory agendas related to the existence of occult economic practices. Some of these issues are being addressed in my recent book: Mobility, Markets and Indigenous Socialities: Contemporary Migration in the Peruvian Andes.
In relation to the research project “Contested Powers: Towards a Political Anthropology of energy in Latin America” I also do research on questions of energy politics, with a particular focus on the smuggling of energy resources from Bolivia into Peru. The price differences on energy resources between Bolivia and Peru are significant, partly as a result of the subsidization of gas and oil in Bolivia. Due to price differences, the smuggling of energy resources has increasingly become a problem for Bolivian authorities, and in December 2010, president Evo Morales decided to reduce subsidies because of this. The smuggling not only represents economic loss for producer countries, but also entails a questioning of state sovereignty, and among the traders involved, the attempts of Bolivian and Peruvian authorities to interfere are considered illegitimate. Indeed, smuggling may be considered a double challenge to state sovereignty, involving denials both of state legitimacy to control flows of commodities, and over the territorial boundaries themselves. The project explores the smuggling of energy resources from Bolivia into Peru in light of questions of sovereignty, morality and state regulation, and is based on ethnographic fieldwork among traders and contrabandistas (smugglers). Being concerned with the ways in which people at the margins of the oil economy manage and negotiate not only their own externality to these new economies, but also the opportunities that may be created, the project explores notions of energy and politics, prosperity and progress from an anthropological perspective.
As part of my involvement in the research project “Localizing Globalization: Gendered Transformations of Work in Developing Economies” I am also doing research more specifically on textiles and the importation of clothes into Peru particularly from China. Peru entered a free-trade agreement with China in 2009, and I explore how this affects more traditional forms of trade and contrabando (smuggling) at the borders with Bolivia and Chile. Both the legal and illegal importation of textiles is considered a threat to the national textile industry in Peru, and the project discusses how these commodity circuits are increasingly made the object of moralization – or de-moralization – among different actors. While the contrabandistas are seen among traders to provide a valuable social service, the regulation of these forms of trade is being strengthened, partly in response to free-trade agreements. Many contrabandistas are now down-sizing their businesses because of strengthened border controls and because of the increased competition from importers working directly with China. The project explores how new mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in relation to trade are being created due to the free-trade agreements, and how these mechanisms can be seen as gendered.
The title of my doctoral dissertation is “A Quest for Progress: Migration, Work and Gender in the Peruvian Andes”. It is concerned with the ways in which people from Andean communities negotiate cultural identities and belonging in an urban context, and has a particular emphasis on gender relationships and the involvement of women in work, trade and social organizations. By focusing on a new urban neighbourhood in the city of Arequipa, this study discusses the significance of reciprocity and ritual in everyday life, and the importance of communal work for local identities as well as in policy making, especially during the regime of Alberto Fujimori. Being concerned with the meanings ascribed to the notion of progress among people at the margins of society, the study demonstrates how the conventional meaning of progress is informed by Andean ideas about prosperity, that is, as dependent on reciprocity and exchange between human beings and with their animated surroundings.
Regional focus:
Peru, the Andes, Latin America
Thematic focus:
- cultural identities, ethnicity, racism
- gender and intersectionality
- migration, mobility, urbanization, development policies
- informal/illegal economies, market, state
- animistic religion, witchcraft
- space/place, globalization
Articles in peer-reviewed journals and books:
2011. “Sources of danger and prosperity in the Peruvian Andes: mobility in a powerful landscape”, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Incorporating Man), 17, pp 339-355.
2010. “Migrasjon, Stat og Territorialisering” (”Migration, State and Territorialization”), with Hege Toje, in Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift, Vol. 21, no. 4, pp 223-238.
2010. “Land and Labour in Processes of Urbanization: The Dialectics between Popular Practices and State Policies in Peru", Forum for Development Studies (Routledge), Vol. 37, No. 1, March 2010, pp 113-136
2008. ”Informal Trade, Contrabando and Prosperous Socialities in Arequipa, Peru”, in Ethnos Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 73, No. 2, pp 241-267.
2007. ”Introduksjon. Om kjønn og antropologi” (”Introduction: On Gender and Anthropology”), with Annelin Eriksen and Anette Fagertun in Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift, nr.2/18, Universitetsforlaget, pp 75-89.
2007. ”From stigma to celebration: the (re-)generation of dilemmas in discourses on cultural hybridity”, in Asgharzadeh, Alireza, Erica Lawson, Kayleen Oka og Amar Wahab (eds.) Diasporic ruptures: globality, migrancy and expressions of identity, Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense Publishers
2006. ”Diskurser om kjønn og modernitet: Statlige utviklingsprosjekter i nyetablerte urbane nabolag, Peru” (”Discourses on Womanhood and Modernity in State Projects for Development in Peru”), in Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift, special issue on anthropology and the state, Vol. 17, No. 3-4, pp 243-252.
2001. ”Las mujeres también son machistas: Alternative discourses on gender among Andean migrants”, in Maria Clara Medina (ed.) Lo público y lo privado: género en America Latina, HAINA-serien no.3, Iberoamerikansk institutt, Gøteborgs Universitet 2001.
Books and edited issues
2010. Mobility, Markets and Indigenous Socialities: Contemporary Migration in the Peruvian Andes, Ashgate, October 2010 Mobility, Markets and Indigenous Socialities: Contemporary Migration in the Peruvian Andes
2007. On Gender and Anthropology, co-edited with Annelin Eriksen and Anette Fagertun, special issue of Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, no 2/18
2006. A Quest for Progress. Migration, Work and Gender in the Peruvian Andes. Doctoral dissertation, University of Bergen.
1999. ”Somos trabajadoras: En studie av kvinners rolle og etniske relasjoner ved rural-urban migrasjon i Peru” (“A Study of Women’s role and Ethnic Relations in Migratory Processes, Peru”), published in the IMER-series (International migration and ethnic relations), UoB
Book reviews
2010. The City at its Limits. Taboo, Transgression, and Urban Renewal in Lima (by Daniella Gandolfo), in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Incorporating Man), forthcoming
2009. Guatemalans in the Aftermath of Violence. The Refugee’s Return (by Kristi Anne Stølen), in Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, Vol. 20, No 4, pp 301-302
2007-2012. Teaching and supervision at master programme in Gender and Development, UoB.
2009. Course-leader and lecturer at two BA-courses on the anthropology of Latin-America, Department of Social Anthropology, UoB.
2007-2012. "The Moralization and Gendering of Markets. Informal Trade in Peru" (postdoctoral project)
2010-2012. “Localizing Globalization: Gendered Transformations of Work in Developing Economies”, involving researchers from different departments and research institutions in Norway and the US, funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
2010-2013. “Contested Powers: Towards a Political Anthropology of Energy in Latin America”, involving researchers from different departments and research institutions in Norway, Europe and Latin America, funded by the Norwegian Research Council.