Well, tonight felt awkward. Having arrived in La Paz two days ago I heard through Facebook about the presentation of a book about Kallawaya culture by a woman who works for one of the government ministries and who is from one of the Kallawaya communities.
It felt awkward, because of the references the author made in speech to the foreign authors who came to Kallawaya communities, putting their voice recorders in people's faces, asking questions, and expecting the locals to answer. When she referred to researchers coming from Germany and the United States and writing books and not leaving copies of their research with the Kallawayas I half expected her to point to me sitting halfway up the auditorium - and that Englishman over there. When I entered the auditorium I sat behind a friend of mine from the same community who I had got to know during my year doing fieldwork research. At one point during the speech, he turned around to me and asked me "and when are you going to present your book?". "A good question," was all I could think to reply. The author went on to say that when she, in conjunction with others who had the idea of writing the book, had sat down to look for works they could reference, they didn't have access to the work that had been written on the Kallawayas by foreign researchers. They had had to find those works in libraries in La Paz. She went on to refer to foreign researchers, who she said came to steal their knowledge, as kharisiris. Kharisiris are a type of vampire who is believed in the Andes to steal people's fat, viewed in the Andes as the vital life source.
"Why can't we write for ourselves?", she asked, "this book isn't for others, it is for ourselves, the Kallawayas". I couldn't help but reflect momentarily on the academic work, which is written about people who might never read it, for journals and read only by other academics. She went on to decry the way that Kallawaya communities were written about in terms of governing themselves through "usos y costumbres" (traditional customs). They are not "usos y costumbres", she explained, they are saberes (knowledge).
She related how she had been invited to an event in Germany to represent Bolivia, and while there had been to visit a museum exhibit of Kallawaya culture. Apparently she had asked to be able to take a photo, but had been told that she would have to pay if she wanted to take photos. "But this is my culture, these are my acsu, my clothing", she replied. She also recounted how she had been to Copacabana and had seen a photo of herself on a postcard, taken when she was younger, on sale. She asked the salesperson to give her the postcard, because that was her in the photo. There was a caption describing her as a "poor woman". Naturally, the salewoman wouldn't give her the postcard, telling her that she had had to pay for the postcards herself from the "author" of the photo. "But I am the author", she said, "I am in the photo!" reflecting on the authorial rights of the subject.
After the speech was over, I followed several others to ask the author to sign my copy of the book, and told her it was great that she had written it. She thanks me warmly for coming, and me when I would be visiting her community. Later I asked her if I had sent her a copy of my thesis, and told her I would send her a copy. "No, you still haven't", she replied (though I had given badly translated copies of my thesis to the people who had appeared in or help me the most with the research for my thesis when I visited Bolivia last year).
It was a great speech. I sat there wishing that I had brought my voice recorder with me so that I could have recorded it. It would have made great material for a journal article.
Friday, 12 May 2017
Friday, 3 February 2017
Seating arrangements #2
As a follow up to the post I wrote in March last year http://jonicito-theowlofminerva.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/seating-arrangements.html, today in the Social Anthropology department seminar I was amused and surprised to notice the gender segregated nature of the seating arrangements in the room. Almost everyone on one side of the room was male (11 our of the 14 people sitting on that side of the room). While almost everyone sitting on the other side of the room was female (12 out of the 13 people on that side of the room). There were two people sitting in the middle at the other end of the table from the speaker, who sat contrary to this pattern, but I am discounting them because they were in the middle.
I tried to analyse why and how this seating arrangement came to be, and couldn't find a good answer. It seemed ironic that the topic of the seminar itself concerned a kind of gender segregation itself as it dealt with female Roman Catholics whose chosen role within the Catholic church had been rejected by the church itself.
I wondered if it was anything to do with the (male) head of department sitting on what I am now thinking of as the male side of the room, and the rest of the men in the department following. I am assuming that the first men and women to sit on either sides of the room were then followed unconsciously by those that sat down afterwards according to their gender.
Saturday, 9 April 2016
A nice day out
Last weekend I made another attempt at market selling. This time with even less success than the previous occasions. I didn't seem to be the only one though. There was a lady from a village the other side of Dundee who was selling wreaths of flowers who didn't seem to have much business all day, though she didn't seem too perturbed by this, and seemed to be having fun knitting despite the lack of custom.
When I went for a wander across the hall to find the bee-cushion lady who I had been placed next to on previous occasions it seemed she was also finding it heavy going. The bee-cushions themselves didn't sell as well as the prints. She told me that this was because people are less willing to pay as much for something which actually has a use.
Some people told me that they often found it difficult getting sales, and I began to wonder why they did it. When a woman from another stall selling wool products came over with her grandson in her arms and told me that she hadn't sold anything either, I asked her whether it was worth coming. Her outlook was quite sunny, much like the weather, which we both bemoaned for our lack of sales: "it's a day out" she told me. She was quite sure that if she took her family (she was with her daughter as well as grandson) on a family day out for the day they would have spent a lot more than the £25 fee for the table. In addition to the weather, she also blamed the venue, telling me that a higher class of clientèle would attend when the market was held in the local theatre.
Another lady selling £2 cards and £3 bags had made about £10 by the end of the day. She told me that when she had first started out a couple of years ago she often made even less! When I asked me why she carried out, her reply was that it was out of "stupidity".
Most of the stall-holders seemed to be in their late 40s and over, and I supposed doing this as a hobby. However, when I asked one woman who by the end of the day had literally only sold a couple of buttons if this was the case, she told me glumly that this was in fact her full time job. We commiserated, and told one another to keep going.
By the end of the day I went having sold nothing (selling wool products in April is perhaps a little optimistic), but having had a few nice chats.
When I went for a wander across the hall to find the bee-cushion lady who I had been placed next to on previous occasions it seemed she was also finding it heavy going. The bee-cushions themselves didn't sell as well as the prints. She told me that this was because people are less willing to pay as much for something which actually has a use.
Some people told me that they often found it difficult getting sales, and I began to wonder why they did it. When a woman from another stall selling wool products came over with her grandson in her arms and told me that she hadn't sold anything either, I asked her whether it was worth coming. Her outlook was quite sunny, much like the weather, which we both bemoaned for our lack of sales: "it's a day out" she told me. She was quite sure that if she took her family (she was with her daughter as well as grandson) on a family day out for the day they would have spent a lot more than the £25 fee for the table. In addition to the weather, she also blamed the venue, telling me that a higher class of clientèle would attend when the market was held in the local theatre.
Another lady selling £2 cards and £3 bags had made about £10 by the end of the day. She told me that when she had first started out a couple of years ago she often made even less! When I asked me why she carried out, her reply was that it was out of "stupidity".
Most of the stall-holders seemed to be in their late 40s and over, and I supposed doing this as a hobby. However, when I asked one woman who by the end of the day had literally only sold a couple of buttons if this was the case, she told me glumly that this was in fact her full time job. We commiserated, and told one another to keep going.
By the end of the day I went having sold nothing (selling wool products in April is perhaps a little optimistic), but having had a few nice chats.
Saturday, 12 March 2016
Seating arrangements
Have you ever noticed how gendered seating arrangements are?
Last Thursday evening after we had been watching a film in the department library, I settled back down in my office to procrastinate over some work, when there came a knock at the door. My friend Luz, having missed her bus, asked me if I fancied a drink. As it was late, and I knew I'd be leaving soon anyway, I did the decent thing and agreed.
We popped down to The Central, and although I got the drinks for some reason I was the first to sit down, while Luz was still at the bar. I sat on the bench running alongside the window, which meant that Luz sat on the chair opposite me. For some reason instinctively I felt that I had crossed a line and acted in an ungentlemanly manner by choosing this seat rather than the chair. I asked Luz whether she minded sitting there, and whether she would prefer to sit on the (more comfortable) bench. She was not quite indignant, but told me that it was always the women who sit on the benches and the men and on the chairs, and she saw no reason why this should be the case. I looked around the pub, and realised that she was right. In every arrangement where were a man and woman sitting together, the man was sitting on the chair and the women on the bench. I couldn't stop looking around and noticing this for the rest of the time we were sitting together in the pub.
I was reminded of this when I saw a story about controversy over the seating arrangements on the BBC breakfast sofa recently. For those of you not abreast of the story, the male host is apparently always sat to the left of the female host of viewers see them, and this implies some kind of seniority. This may be partly because the male host is often older, and I guess, more experienced. However, when a young pup of a male co-host replaced the older male presenter recently, he was still sat in the (apparently) more senior position, on the left of the screen. You can read more about that story here: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/16/bbc-breakfast-countryfile-louise-minchin-sofa-dan-walker
Last Thursday evening after we had been watching a film in the department library, I settled back down in my office to procrastinate over some work, when there came a knock at the door. My friend Luz, having missed her bus, asked me if I fancied a drink. As it was late, and I knew I'd be leaving soon anyway, I did the decent thing and agreed.
We popped down to The Central, and although I got the drinks for some reason I was the first to sit down, while Luz was still at the bar. I sat on the bench running alongside the window, which meant that Luz sat on the chair opposite me. For some reason instinctively I felt that I had crossed a line and acted in an ungentlemanly manner by choosing this seat rather than the chair. I asked Luz whether she minded sitting there, and whether she would prefer to sit on the (more comfortable) bench. She was not quite indignant, but told me that it was always the women who sit on the benches and the men and on the chairs, and she saw no reason why this should be the case. I looked around the pub, and realised that she was right. In every arrangement where were a man and woman sitting together, the man was sitting on the chair and the women on the bench. I couldn't stop looking around and noticing this for the rest of the time we were sitting together in the pub.
I was reminded of this when I saw a story about controversy over the seating arrangements on the BBC breakfast sofa recently. For those of you not abreast of the story, the male host is apparently always sat to the left of the female host of viewers see them, and this implies some kind of seniority. This may be partly because the male host is often older, and I guess, more experienced. However, when a young pup of a male co-host replaced the older male presenter recently, he was still sat in the (apparently) more senior position, on the left of the screen. You can read more about that story here: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/16/bbc-breakfast-countryfile-louise-minchin-sofa-dan-walker
Monday, 4 January 2016
The Christmas market
A couple of weeks ago, I attempted, for the second time, to sell alpaca scarves made by alpaca farmers I know in Bolivia, here in St Andrews. The market was a little more successful than the first, partly because it was inside rather than in the rain, so even if no-one bought anything I nonetheless remained dry.
This time I also had company. An American friend of mine, who had previously helped me to advertise by modelling the scarves, came to keep me company. I was also surprised to know that I already knew the woman at the stall next to mine. She had been selling cushions with pictures of bees and the local towns on them at the previous market. Previously her mother had also been with her, but she had found her mother to be lacking in the wiles of market-selling (she had not given the customers enough space to look at the goods) and had let her sit this one out.
The hardest thing was to know to what extent to try to engage with potential customers - whether to allow passers by to simply peruse the stall, or to actively try to sell to them. My friend tried to make chit-chat with those glancing at the stall by asking how they were. "Don't mind her," I told one potential customer, in a vain attempt to engage her in banter. "She's American - she doesn't realise that 'how are you?' is aggressively friendly to British people. Unfortunately the customer paid no attention, and this merely resulted in a lengthy conversation with my friend about transatlantic greetings. An English friend who came to the stall confirmed that she felt 'how are you?' to be a personal question, and one that would cause her to question the motives of any stranger's inquiry into her health.
Most of the people who did engage in conversation with us, told us how nice the scarves were, but without any intention to purchase. The bee-cushion woman told us she would like to implement a compliment box - like a swear box, which people would have to pay money into every time they told her how nice her things were but without buying anything. We did in the end sell some scarves, though mostly to people we already knew at university.
We weren't, in fact, the only ones selling alpaca goods at the market, though I don't think this affected sales, as the other stall only seemed to be selling balls of wool and jewellery (the necklaces were made of alpaca wool). At one point I got talking to the woman from the stall. She was rather snobbish about the quality of her wool (and British alpacas in general) compared to those from the Andes. "It's such a shame that there are people selling alpaca wool from South America over here, when alpacas from the UK are much better quality", she told me. It was difficult to tell how she intended for me to take this. Although she was giving barbed comments in the friendliest of manners, she had the appearance of a snarling cat warning fellow felines to keep out of its territory.
What she meant by British alpacas being of superior quality, she told me, was that British alpacas are bred for purity, whereas in South America, according to her, alpacas were bred with llamas. When I was in Bolivia I had heard that this happened, but my recollection was that it was nevertheless frown upon, and those who were serious about selling the wool of their alpacas tried to ensure purity of stock.
I was reminded of when I helped my friends to skin an alpaca for the first time. When I asked why we had chosen this particular alpaca I was told that it was because it wasn't suitable to have children. Looking back, this clearly seemed an allusion to the purity of its blood, and an attempt to improve the stock, by ensuring that particular alpacas had children and others did not. When I remarked on this to a lecturer in the department at his house over lunch a few days later he pointed out, very logically, that not being suitable to have children may simply have meant that it was too old.
This time I also had company. An American friend of mine, who had previously helped me to advertise by modelling the scarves, came to keep me company. I was also surprised to know that I already knew the woman at the stall next to mine. She had been selling cushions with pictures of bees and the local towns on them at the previous market. Previously her mother had also been with her, but she had found her mother to be lacking in the wiles of market-selling (she had not given the customers enough space to look at the goods) and had let her sit this one out.
The hardest thing was to know to what extent to try to engage with potential customers - whether to allow passers by to simply peruse the stall, or to actively try to sell to them. My friend tried to make chit-chat with those glancing at the stall by asking how they were. "Don't mind her," I told one potential customer, in a vain attempt to engage her in banter. "She's American - she doesn't realise that 'how are you?' is aggressively friendly to British people. Unfortunately the customer paid no attention, and this merely resulted in a lengthy conversation with my friend about transatlantic greetings. An English friend who came to the stall confirmed that she felt 'how are you?' to be a personal question, and one that would cause her to question the motives of any stranger's inquiry into her health.
Most of the people who did engage in conversation with us, told us how nice the scarves were, but without any intention to purchase. The bee-cushion woman told us she would like to implement a compliment box - like a swear box, which people would have to pay money into every time they told her how nice her things were but without buying anything. We did in the end sell some scarves, though mostly to people we already knew at university.
We weren't, in fact, the only ones selling alpaca goods at the market, though I don't think this affected sales, as the other stall only seemed to be selling balls of wool and jewellery (the necklaces were made of alpaca wool). At one point I got talking to the woman from the stall. She was rather snobbish about the quality of her wool (and British alpacas in general) compared to those from the Andes. "It's such a shame that there are people selling alpaca wool from South America over here, when alpacas from the UK are much better quality", she told me. It was difficult to tell how she intended for me to take this. Although she was giving barbed comments in the friendliest of manners, she had the appearance of a snarling cat warning fellow felines to keep out of its territory.
What she meant by British alpacas being of superior quality, she told me, was that British alpacas are bred for purity, whereas in South America, according to her, alpacas were bred with llamas. When I was in Bolivia I had heard that this happened, but my recollection was that it was nevertheless frown upon, and those who were serious about selling the wool of their alpacas tried to ensure purity of stock.
I was reminded of when I helped my friends to skin an alpaca for the first time. When I asked why we had chosen this particular alpaca I was told that it was because it wasn't suitable to have children. Looking back, this clearly seemed an allusion to the purity of its blood, and an attempt to improve the stock, by ensuring that particular alpacas had children and others did not. When I remarked on this to a lecturer in the department at his house over lunch a few days later he pointed out, very logically, that not being suitable to have children may simply have meant that it was too old.
Saturday, 28 November 2015
My experience as a market seller
So today, for what I think was only the third time in my life, I tried to sell to people in a market. The first two times had been in Bolivia and perhaps do not count for so much as I was only the assistant on both occasions.
On the first occasion I had helped Isaac Condori, the father of a friend, to sell home-made bread in the Huancasaya market on the border of Peru (Huancasaya was in Franz Tamayo, the neighbouring province to the one in which I was based for my fieldwork, Bautista Saavedra). We had had to get up at around 3am to take an open-top mini-bus from the town of Charazani to Huancasaya to be there to set up for 6am when the sun came up and the customers would begin arriving. Some of our sales seemed to be the result of long-established relationships with known customers (many of whom crossed the border from Peru - the border being the river Suches), and even those who Isaac did not have a relationship with, knew that there would be bread for sale. The bread sold like hot cakes. I enjoyed the experience, and as his assistant, Isaac was obliged to buy me lunch - as I recall, I had trout (though it seemed that he did so reluctantly, only after being reminded by the fellow sellers from Charazani that this was the expected behaviour of the trader towards his assistant.
On the second occasion, I assisted my friend Natalio from the highland community of Qullpani in selling alpaca meat at the nearby market of Patamanta (which is held on the same day at the Huancasaya market). Like Huancasaya, Patamanta is right next to the border with Peru and many of those who come to buy do so from the neighbouring country. My job was to check the weight of the alpaca meat while Natalio held it up using both his scales and the scales of the buyer. Although I didn't directly receive any meal in return that day, I had been staying at Natalio's house the previous few days and received many hearty meals, several of them using organs of the alpaca which if they were on sale in the UK I would have turned my nose up at (e.g. tripe, intestines), but due to hunger had learned to enjoy sufficiently to not to embarrass myself by refusing meals (though the alpaca bran soup which I had in one of the nearby communities of Llachuani as difficult to feign enjoyment of).
There were several alpaca-herding families, who I spent time with during my fieldwork, not just in the Aymara-speaking highland communities of Qullpani and Llachuani, but also a family in the upper valley (around 3,900 metres in altitude) community of Moyapampa. This was the family of Petrona Flores Mamani, who I had got to know through the Kallawaya autonomy assembly and with whose family I ended up spending time with for periods throughout my fieldwork. During my time with them I would help them planting in the fields, herding their alpacas - and once, in skinning an alpaca. Petrona's family had a loom in their house and made alpaca-wool scarves at home, which Petrona would take to La Paz and try to sell. I bought a scarf from them in my first week of fieldwork, which served me well, and several more in my last week which I took back to the UK with me and gave to friends and relatives as presents.
After I had been back in the UK for around a year I managed to find Petrona and her daughters on facebook. It wasn't long before one of Petrona's daughters began trying to persuade me to try to sell in the UK the garments which her family makes. After a year trying get s student society interested in taking this on as a project, and eventually realising this was a dead end, I decided that I would take the bull by the horns and put my own money in to try to sell them myself. The first package came over in May in the luggage of a friend who was travelling from Bolivia. I thought it would be difficult to sell any at all in the summer, but was pleasantly surprised when, after informing the Collaborative Anthropology group about the scarves two lecturers and one fellow Phd student bought scarves straight away. One of the lecturers went crazy for them, emailing me to bring the scarves to her office immediately, as soon as she found out about them. She was almost certainly more excited than I had ever seen a fellow human being on the topic of scarves. "Do you know how many bags of scarves, I have?" she asked me. "Eleven bags of scarves! And those are just the ones I had to give to charity because I had too many scarves" (I am paraphrasing a little). My first thought was that she clearly had a problem which could not solved by the purchase of more scarves. To my good fortune, however, her analysis did not concur with mine, and not only purchased some for herself and as gifts, but filled my head with grand dreams of opening an emporium of alpaca scarves.
As Christmas began approaching in November I asked Petrona to send more scarves, and this time hats, and at the same time asked the Social Anthropology school President to inform the undergrads. When she told me she had forwarded an email from me to 588 undergraduate students I expected myself to be overwhelmed. But so far the deluge has been... slow. By then I had already paid a deposit on a space to sell the scarves at a market in a local school in St Andrews, on what turned out to be St Andrews day. I had been worried about not having enough stock after selling some to students, but luckily another box arrived three days before the market. On the day it was bleak. Windy and rainy and I had to carry a card table with my to the venue in addition to the hats and scarves.
When I arrived, I had been unable to find the organiser of the market, Janet, who I assumed would tell me where my pitch would be for the day, but I was advised that it didn't matter, and to just find a vacant spot. I set my table (a small card table which I had been able to carry from home) up between two ladies sell what I think I could categorise as knick-knacks, and they were to be my companions for the afternoon (or from 11-4, the hours of the market). The lady of one side was selling scented textiles made into the shape of animals (dogs, mostly), other ornaments shaped to appear like ducks, Christmas wreaths, and 1930s-style hats. The lady on the other side was selling coasters, cards and cushions imprinted with various designs. Some of the designs showed animals, such as dogs (she proclaimed at one point in the afternoon, when a dog-walker went past, that she was a dog person), and drawings of East Nuak villages and St Andrews. By far the most popular of her items, she told me, were those with the drawings of St Andrews on them, which perhaps give a sense both a sense of St Andreans pride in their town and the general perceived attractiveness of it.
They were both very friendly towards me and the lady on one side gave me not just two cups of tea to keep me warm, but also a (small) free gift when I took an interest in the various nice smelling things she was selling. Although I felt very much like an outsider, this being my first attempt at market selling on my own and my very first in the UK,feeling like a novice surrounded by experts, my neighbours brought me into the fold. They gave me advice on the positioning of my table (that I should try to move it forward, closer to the people walking past), the presentation of my wares (that I move my (rather amateurish) sign up to make it more visible, and that I make clear that the alpaca scarves and whatnot were Bolivian. They also encouraged me as the day went on, telling me that I was gaining in confidence when I actively greeted passers-by, and tried to engage them in conversation. We were also united by our common experience of the cold.
Before the fair I had tried to think about what I needed to make my table attractive. I printed out a photo of Petrona,which I taped to a Bolivian aguayo (for these purposes, a tablecloth). I also printed out an A4 piece of paper on which I had written in big letters "Alpaca scarves and hats". Only later did it occur to me that I needed to have written "Bolivian alpaca scarves and hats", to make clear their provenance. One thing I did not do was to write down the prices of the items. I had considered this as a possibility, but had, I think,taken the Bolivian markets as my guide. I could not recall ever seeing prices for similar items in Bolivian markets,and so decided not to attach visible prices to mine, on the basis that if someone was interested they would ask the price, and I would be perfectly open to haggling.
I sold two large scarves all day long. One to a librarian, who I recognised and who recognised me, and who it was therefore easy to strike up a conversation with, and another to a friend from the Social Anthropology department who I could have sold to in the department anyway. The ladies at the stalls either side of mine put the blame largely on my lack of visible pricing for my lack of success. When Janet appeared late in the day she also remarked that this may have been a factor. She told me that women like to see prices or they won't take an interest in the products. Men might approach to ask, but women would not. She was probably right. I think only one or two people approached to ask about prices. Others I volunteered the prices to myself.
The size and location of the table may also have been a factor. The fact that I had such a small table meant that if I was near the table then nobody could approach to look at the items without my presence. I tried moving the table forward and backwards and backwards, and eventually put an aguayo down on the floor in front of the table with scarves on to spread things about a bit. The fact that it was cold and rainy outside - and we were outside ourselves in the courtyard of a school, did not help to attract customers, and it not until I had been at the stall for a good two hours that there was much footfall at all.
It's a learning process though... I will be attempting it again in two week's time, thankfully next time inside in a place where they will give me a table.
On the first occasion I had helped Isaac Condori, the father of a friend, to sell home-made bread in the Huancasaya market on the border of Peru (Huancasaya was in Franz Tamayo, the neighbouring province to the one in which I was based for my fieldwork, Bautista Saavedra). We had had to get up at around 3am to take an open-top mini-bus from the town of Charazani to Huancasaya to be there to set up for 6am when the sun came up and the customers would begin arriving. Some of our sales seemed to be the result of long-established relationships with known customers (many of whom crossed the border from Peru - the border being the river Suches), and even those who Isaac did not have a relationship with, knew that there would be bread for sale. The bread sold like hot cakes. I enjoyed the experience, and as his assistant, Isaac was obliged to buy me lunch - as I recall, I had trout (though it seemed that he did so reluctantly, only after being reminded by the fellow sellers from Charazani that this was the expected behaviour of the trader towards his assistant.
On the second occasion, I assisted my friend Natalio from the highland community of Qullpani in selling alpaca meat at the nearby market of Patamanta (which is held on the same day at the Huancasaya market). Like Huancasaya, Patamanta is right next to the border with Peru and many of those who come to buy do so from the neighbouring country. My job was to check the weight of the alpaca meat while Natalio held it up using both his scales and the scales of the buyer. Although I didn't directly receive any meal in return that day, I had been staying at Natalio's house the previous few days and received many hearty meals, several of them using organs of the alpaca which if they were on sale in the UK I would have turned my nose up at (e.g. tripe, intestines), but due to hunger had learned to enjoy sufficiently to not to embarrass myself by refusing meals (though the alpaca bran soup which I had in one of the nearby communities of Llachuani as difficult to feign enjoyment of).
There were several alpaca-herding families, who I spent time with during my fieldwork, not just in the Aymara-speaking highland communities of Qullpani and Llachuani, but also a family in the upper valley (around 3,900 metres in altitude) community of Moyapampa. This was the family of Petrona Flores Mamani, who I had got to know through the Kallawaya autonomy assembly and with whose family I ended up spending time with for periods throughout my fieldwork. During my time with them I would help them planting in the fields, herding their alpacas - and once, in skinning an alpaca. Petrona's family had a loom in their house and made alpaca-wool scarves at home, which Petrona would take to La Paz and try to sell. I bought a scarf from them in my first week of fieldwork, which served me well, and several more in my last week which I took back to the UK with me and gave to friends and relatives as presents.
After I had been back in the UK for around a year I managed to find Petrona and her daughters on facebook. It wasn't long before one of Petrona's daughters began trying to persuade me to try to sell in the UK the garments which her family makes. After a year trying get s student society interested in taking this on as a project, and eventually realising this was a dead end, I decided that I would take the bull by the horns and put my own money in to try to sell them myself. The first package came over in May in the luggage of a friend who was travelling from Bolivia. I thought it would be difficult to sell any at all in the summer, but was pleasantly surprised when, after informing the Collaborative Anthropology group about the scarves two lecturers and one fellow Phd student bought scarves straight away. One of the lecturers went crazy for them, emailing me to bring the scarves to her office immediately, as soon as she found out about them. She was almost certainly more excited than I had ever seen a fellow human being on the topic of scarves. "Do you know how many bags of scarves, I have?" she asked me. "Eleven bags of scarves! And those are just the ones I had to give to charity because I had too many scarves" (I am paraphrasing a little). My first thought was that she clearly had a problem which could not solved by the purchase of more scarves. To my good fortune, however, her analysis did not concur with mine, and not only purchased some for herself and as gifts, but filled my head with grand dreams of opening an emporium of alpaca scarves.
As Christmas began approaching in November I asked Petrona to send more scarves, and this time hats, and at the same time asked the Social Anthropology school President to inform the undergrads. When she told me she had forwarded an email from me to 588 undergraduate students I expected myself to be overwhelmed. But so far the deluge has been... slow. By then I had already paid a deposit on a space to sell the scarves at a market in a local school in St Andrews, on what turned out to be St Andrews day. I had been worried about not having enough stock after selling some to students, but luckily another box arrived three days before the market. On the day it was bleak. Windy and rainy and I had to carry a card table with my to the venue in addition to the hats and scarves.
When I arrived, I had been unable to find the organiser of the market, Janet, who I assumed would tell me where my pitch would be for the day, but I was advised that it didn't matter, and to just find a vacant spot. I set my table (a small card table which I had been able to carry from home) up between two ladies sell what I think I could categorise as knick-knacks, and they were to be my companions for the afternoon (or from 11-4, the hours of the market). The lady of one side was selling scented textiles made into the shape of animals (dogs, mostly), other ornaments shaped to appear like ducks, Christmas wreaths, and 1930s-style hats. The lady on the other side was selling coasters, cards and cushions imprinted with various designs. Some of the designs showed animals, such as dogs (she proclaimed at one point in the afternoon, when a dog-walker went past, that she was a dog person), and drawings of East Nuak villages and St Andrews. By far the most popular of her items, she told me, were those with the drawings of St Andrews on them, which perhaps give a sense both a sense of St Andreans pride in their town and the general perceived attractiveness of it.
They were both very friendly towards me and the lady on one side gave me not just two cups of tea to keep me warm, but also a (small) free gift when I took an interest in the various nice smelling things she was selling. Although I felt very much like an outsider, this being my first attempt at market selling on my own and my very first in the UK,feeling like a novice surrounded by experts, my neighbours brought me into the fold. They gave me advice on the positioning of my table (that I should try to move it forward, closer to the people walking past), the presentation of my wares (that I move my (rather amateurish) sign up to make it more visible, and that I make clear that the alpaca scarves and whatnot were Bolivian. They also encouraged me as the day went on, telling me that I was gaining in confidence when I actively greeted passers-by, and tried to engage them in conversation. We were also united by our common experience of the cold.
Before the fair I had tried to think about what I needed to make my table attractive. I printed out a photo of Petrona,which I taped to a Bolivian aguayo (for these purposes, a tablecloth). I also printed out an A4 piece of paper on which I had written in big letters "Alpaca scarves and hats". Only later did it occur to me that I needed to have written "Bolivian alpaca scarves and hats", to make clear their provenance. One thing I did not do was to write down the prices of the items. I had considered this as a possibility, but had, I think,taken the Bolivian markets as my guide. I could not recall ever seeing prices for similar items in Bolivian markets,and so decided not to attach visible prices to mine, on the basis that if someone was interested they would ask the price, and I would be perfectly open to haggling.
I sold two large scarves all day long. One to a librarian, who I recognised and who recognised me, and who it was therefore easy to strike up a conversation with, and another to a friend from the Social Anthropology department who I could have sold to in the department anyway. The ladies at the stalls either side of mine put the blame largely on my lack of visible pricing for my lack of success. When Janet appeared late in the day she also remarked that this may have been a factor. She told me that women like to see prices or they won't take an interest in the products. Men might approach to ask, but women would not. She was probably right. I think only one or two people approached to ask about prices. Others I volunteered the prices to myself.
The size and location of the table may also have been a factor. The fact that I had such a small table meant that if I was near the table then nobody could approach to look at the items without my presence. I tried moving the table forward and backwards and backwards, and eventually put an aguayo down on the floor in front of the table with scarves on to spread things about a bit. The fact that it was cold and rainy outside - and we were outside ourselves in the courtyard of a school, did not help to attract customers, and it not until I had been at the stall for a good two hours that there was much footfall at all.
It's a learning process though... I will be attempting it again in two week's time, thankfully next time inside in a place where they will give me a table.
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