Gendered Inequalities in Ethnic Enclaves: Labour Insertion of Bolivian Aymara Women in Northern Chilean Borderlands

Abstract

This article presents an ethnographic case study on the labour insertion of 30 Bolivian Aymara women in Arica (Chile). It covers their life histories, contrasting their productive and migratory experiences. Our objective is to describe the sectors where the interviewees insert themselves in the labour market and show that their productive functions are configured in a multidimensional way: as ethnicised cultural and social capital and as a gender mandate. The findings suggest that their working activities are framed by the deployment of the multiple presence of women, which is configured as an expression of their productive and reproductive overload.