Embedded Resistance and the Fluid Interpretation of Gender Schemas in a Mexican Sending Town

• In Event: 566 - Section on Latino/a Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Gendered Lives

Abstract

In this article we examine the mechanisms by which women in a rural indigenous sending Mexican community come to engage in embedded resistance by reinterpreting the gender structure through the schemas that compose it. Specifically, by highlighting the challenging economic and affective stresses experienced by families and communities as a result of migration, we identify women’s use of embedded resistance as a way of responding to these changes. Based on interviews with migrant and non-migrant related women and qualitative fieldwork, we find that embedded resistance led to empowering yet conflicting situations as women took on different roles within the household and extended those experiences to public spaces. Still, in order to understand women’s embedded resistance it is critical to recognize not only the importance of the schemas that compose any community, but also highlight the context that makes some of these factors more salient than others.

Authors

• Maria Isabel Ayala, Michigan State University

• Aurelia Lorena Murga, University of Texas-El Paso