The Nation and the Domestic

Introduction

In this essay, I will explore the opportunities that unfolded the performance “The Nation and the Domestic” that I wrote in 2011 after my first fieldwork in the communities of Valle Alto in the Choapa Valley in the Chilean Andes. This performance is the result of my reflection as a feminist in a territory where there is a conflict between the mega mining project Los Pelambres and the local communities of Valle Alto, and also where women are underrepresented within the public space and in the discussion of conflict. First, I wrote this performance for myself out of rage and helplessness, but I then shared it with the people who participated in the interviews during the first year when I did my fieldwork. In the “Nation and the Domestic,” I put all women in the same room to discuss their stories and how the mining industry affects their lives, including myself as a researcher. In this essay, I will unfold from the “I” perspective what it has meant for me to be called a niña (a little girl) every time I go back to the Andes. I first met these communities as a NGO worker, then as an activist and now as a researcher. After several years of work, it is clear that without a critical feminist perspective to help reflect on the conflict, it would be very difficult to work toward a sustainable development in the valley. Women have been historically marginalized in the discussion with the mine representatives and within the community organizations that deal with the issue. This fact has affected the women’s knowledge about the conflict and the process of mining production, and has silenced their perspectives about the construction of solutions. Through the performance “The Nation and the Domestic,” vignettes, and auto-ethnography interpretation, I will analyze this research experience showing in three different phases—previous experience, performance and reaction analysis, how I experienced this process with the aim of developing a space of conversation in a context of conflict and resistance—as well as look at the direct implication that this sort of experience has upon critical ethnographic work (Madison, 2012).

I Need to Speak Up

You can’t learn how to tell someone else’s story until you first learn how to tell your own.

Chile is a developing country that has experimented a boom in the expansion of the mining industry during the last years, following a global trend of the need for mineral resources. In this context, since 1999, a mining company called Los Pelambres, which is part of the holding Antofagasta Minerals, has developed its production in Valle Alto, which lies in the region of Coquimbo, Chile. The cost that mining production represents for the life of the people who live in this zone is intended to be subsidized by the material development that mining extraction produces in its areas of exploitation. For the last six years, I have been working from different positionalities with one of the local communities that is closer to the zone of impact of this company. Since the beginning, my presence in this space has had its issues. When I visited Valle Alto for the first time, I worked for Participa, a well-known Chilean non-profit. ¹ However, regardless of the fact that I entered that space as a professional, I was always called niña (a girl) by the community members, but mostly men, which denotes that I’m not seen as a grown woman, but rather as a young child who needs to be taught—mainly by the men of this area. This was exemplified even in formal meetings, where the men referred to me as niña, showing how my gender overpowered my professional position in those meetings. This situation is not unique only to me but affects the young women of this community, even if they are already mothers and/or independent women. There is a constant struggle to demonstrate that you (as a woman) are capable of doing what a full-grown person is capable of. In addition to being a woman, I also openly identify as being an indigenous person and a feminist, and this “package” brought about other issues for how I was perceived in the community. One of the events that marked my work with this community was the day when I had to yell at twelve men in a room to be heard. ² Years later, I have seen the same scene with other women who have had to validate their presence and voice within the group.

An evening in the Andes . . .

In this community, the presence of women in the public space is highly restricted. Only a few women have positions of leadership, especially a position that deals with issues where the conflict with the mine is present. The mechanisms of the segregation of women from the public space are not recognized by men, and if you ask them—I have asked them on several occasions—why do women not participate, and the men would respond that it is because women don’t want to participate or women are not interested in these sort of issues, or simply that they did not know why. However, from a critical feminist perspective, I intentionally work with women, who have demonstrated during individual interviews that they have sophisticated critiques of the community administration of the conflict. They have clear desires and opinions regarding the fate of the valley, the political articulation of the conflict, and their perceptions about their role in this space. They are also critical of the community leadership. By including women who are not very visible within the conflict administration in my study, I am exploring how the interpretation of the effects of the presence of the mine shows variants in the discourse that are not being addressed in the main discussion of the leaders of the community; issues such as the employability of women or the fears about the presence of the tail dam are left out of the discussion.

I Need to Speak About My Subjectivities

I returned to the community in 2012 with a pile of translated papers that I wrote during my PhD coursework at the University of Illinois. I was especially afraid about sharing my “personal thoughts” in a performance. This was not the first time I would be in discussion with the leaders of the community about why it is important to incorporate multiple opinions in the discussion of the conflict; however, this was the first time that I openly conceptualized my feminism and presented my subjectivities based on my academic work. It was at this time that I had to share my representation of the “Other” and all the “far-reaching consequences” (Conquergood, 1989) that my representations could have. I had to put myself under scrutiny to be able to have a critical and liberating dialogue (Freire, 2005) and to open myself up to being vulnerable, because I now know that the subjections that women have to overcome also affect my work and me. I see this in the way in which I relate with the leaders and how I need to always be alert to demonstrate my strengths. For the purpose of my ethnographic fieldwork, I understand that the success of the ethnographic work does not necessarily rely on the set of predesigned questions or a detailed plan, but “what is required is genuine curiosity, sincere interest, and the courage to be ‘vulnerable’ to another at the risk of being ‘the register’ of someone else’s power” (Madison, 2012, p. 43). I understood that those were all actions that had to be undertaken, but to go back into the field with the analysis of my observations and interviews—that took more courage than I expected.

One of the outcomes I was expecting from sharing not only myself but also my research with the people that I work with in Valle Alto was the chance to have a more sincere conversation with the women and men of this community. Hence, talking about the macho-culture-oriented dynamics that exist in Valle Alto was a discussion catalyzer that could jeopardize my permanence in the community. According to Krumer-Nevo (2012), what usually happens is that “in most genres of qualitative research, interpretation is the sole responsibility of the researcher, and in general, interpretation is not guided by the aim of challenging Othering” (p. 195). In this case, the performance became a challenging piece to this machismo that is naturalized in the daily lives of the community. To share what I thought, not only from a pure and “objective” perspective (about the others) but also including my personal experiences, contributed to going beyond interpretation and “Othering” to creating conversations based on the interviews and observations I had done in the community.

Conquergood (2002) says that when a performance opens the space that is inhabited between analysis and action, there is a transformative experience for the actors, but the researcher has to learn to be comfortable with the uncertainty and vulnerability, or at least to want to explore this space. Hence, the researcher assumes that the “Other” will intervene on many different levels of the analysis of the situation registered through ethnographic work. The dialogical performance allows the researcher to change the routine of speaking about the “object of analysis” to assume a conversation in which the researcher speaks to and with the people who are involved in the performance assuming that the dialogical self is also inserted within contexts of race, gender, and class (Conquergood, 2012). In this theoretical and methodological context, it was my hope to establish a discussion on the chauvinist cultural practices that I rejected in this space, because I have experienced them and I share with other women such bonds that are a product of our experiences that are mediated by our gender.

My First Attempt

Before returning to the United States from my first summer of fieldwork, some community leaders asked me to share with them the initial outcomes of my research. They also asked me to give a workshop on strategic communication, as that was an issue they wanted to address. That was the first time I had a chance to speak up in public about the segregation of women that I saw as affecting the work of the local communities. After years of working with this community, I had been invited to use my research as a magnifying lens, by using the information I collected from the interviews I did with the women to point to ordinary topics that are central to the resistance of the community.

Cuncumén, Winter, Friday:

Tonight is my last night in Cuncumén. I’ve been preparing this workshop since the day they asked me to do it. We have walked a long way since the first time we met. I’m still a niña, no doubt about that, but at least I’m a niña who owns a voice in the public. My topics for today’s workshop include the analysis of the representation of the local leaders of the community and the participation or lack of participation of a big part of the community in the discussions held with the company representatives; I’ll raise the topic of lack of women representation during the discussion. Also, another very important point that I’ve learned from the interviews is the disparity that different people have about the purposes of the same organization, the Cooperativa de Desarrollo Sustentable (CDS; Cooperative for the Sustainable Development). ⁴ I think we need to have a discussion about the discourse that they are transmitting to the rest of the community.

It is Friday evening; I do not know how many people will show up to our workshop. After some minutes, people start to enter the room, and we start around a half an hour late, but we are more than 20 people. All participants are men, except for three women in the audience, all who work at the CDS and are in their roles of professionals at the workshop. The conversation flows, and topics such as the analysis of the public message that the cooperative is sharing with the rest of the community or the distribution of information are discussed in detail. It is getting late, but we only have been able to go through half of the workshop. I just let it follow in its own rhythm; I see people need to speak, and this is a good exercise. It’s getting dark, and we have no lights. It started to snow heavily, and the strength of the snow has broken a branch of a tree, which hit the electric light pole and cut the wires that feed the place where we are meeting. We continue regardless of that. We can barely read what is on the walls. Someone lends me a flashlight, someone else shows up with some candles. We keep discussing, this is necessary . . .

It is about 10 p.m. We have been here for almost three hours discussing, and we still haven’t been able to finish, but the discussions generated are good in and of themselves. With regard to my point about women participation, it was one of the topics that received the least amount of discussion. I tell them that women are relevant for the construction of solutions to the problems the community faces, that they are half of the population, and that they obviously cannot claim to have organizations that represent the community if men are the only ones involved in them. Some of them seem to agree, some of them look indifferent.

At the end of the workshop, I feel we have accomplished a lot, but the point about women participation is something that was almost not present in the discussion tonight. We spoke a lot about democracy and rights but not about gender-blind dynamics.

My Second Attempt: The Nation and the Domestic

After I left Cuncumén, I wrote “The Nation and the Domestic.” The year after, when I returned to Cuncumén, I started to share the translation of the different articles I wrote during the year. The first comments I received were about the performance, which is basically the reproduction of conversations that I had with different women in Cuncumén and its surrounding area. The dialogues were performed one by one, because in my experience, it is less frequent to find women participating in public discussions regarding the conflict with the company or directly speaking about the conflict in social gatherings; therefore, to get access to their opinions, it is necessary to address them in other type of spaces, such as their homes.

In this case, the dialogues focus not only on the impacts on the environment but also on their daily discourses and the reconstruction of their memories of the valley. The following is a selection of some of the scenes that represent the performance:

What Was in Discussion?

In this context of dispute, there is a mega mining project that makes the economy of the region grow, while affecting the life of the people who live next to the zone of extraction. This is not news for a country that has historically developed the mining industry. However, part of this community have opted to work together with the company to find a solution to the conflict, mainly with respect to the quality of the environment, but in this discussion, women’s perspectives are not considered as crucial as men’s perspectives in the community. The company and community members, especially those community members who are the leaders in the management of the conflict, steadily obviate the situation of women. The discussion focuses on the impact that mining production produces on the natural resources, such as land and water, in their relation to farm production.

In 2012, when I started to receive comments regarding the work that I put in circulation within community members who have participated in the research before, I was very surprised, because the first comments received were about the stories of the women in the locality. This reaction was out of what I could have expected, since the focus of this whole conflict has always been to discuss the material environment. Through the voice of some men, I learned that the story of the woman who couldn’t sleep at night out of fear of dying was not an isolated story, because other women of around the same age were experiencing the same fear. One of the community leaders asked me whether I was speaking about his mother in that piece; it wasn’t her story, but I learned through this question that the woman I’m speaking about was not the only one who feared the mine and its consequences.

Before I left Cuncumén, I held a meeting with four persons who wanted to learn more about what I’m doing with the research. I used the time to answer in detail what I am thinking and saying through my work. When we got to the point of discussing the performance, this is what happened:

Now that we know each other better, I understand your frustration at that time when we discussed about the radio, I also understand that this reaction was not against us, but it represented a reaction against the same violence of which you also have been victim at the time.

I also think that in your public meetings, women have to be very aggressive and raise their voice all the time if they want to be heard, which is not the same requirement for men. I recognize that you invite everyone to participate, but have you ever wondered if women were not able to attend the community meetings that happen at night because they are taking care of their children at the same time?

Conversations like these were repeated during my stay in the community. I got feedback from women who helped to expand the view I had about their politics and also learned how some of them are becoming more engaged in the public discussion of the relationship between community and company, and about the difficulties they are overcoming to become active members of the local organizations. I also learned that one man read the performance with his wife and told her that these are the kind of things they do during their meetings. He told me he wanted to encourage her to participate. This time, I was able to meet more women who are participating in the public discussions related to the conflict, which is a sign of progress that women are initiating.

As a researcher, I think this is a crucial lesson I can learn from my experience initiating a conversation about gender inequalities and then going back to the community of Valle Alto to engage in new conversations with the community members to talk not only about their lives but also about my work and my personal experience doing fieldwork. Rather than looking for claims of knowledge, I was able to engage with other people with whom I shared similar concerns. Thus, I have understood through this practice that my agency does not come from me but from my capacity in the social, in the common vision that we share (Zerilli, 2005). As a result, I now understand that my agency as a researcher comes through participating in collective actions, which is something that researchers face between analysis and action. These collective actions are spaces in between that may open new possibilities to tailor the social systems in ways that are not mandated by a productive system (Conquergood, 2002) and where all subjects are animated, human in all their capacities. According to Freire (2005), “the more the oppressors control the oppressed, the more they change them into apparently inanimate ‘things’” (p. 59), which is part of the logic when the company includes the nearby communities as part of Los Pelambres’ extraction process.

The Measurement

According to Denzin and Lincoln (2011),

Qualitative researchers stress the socially constructed nature of reality, the intimate relationship between the researcher and what is studied, and the situational constrains that shape inquiry. Such researchers emphasize the value-laden nature of inquiry. They seek answers to questions that stress how social experience is created and given meaning. In contrast, quantitative studies emphasize the measurement and analysis of causal relationships between variables, not processes. Proponents claim that their work is done within a value-free framework. (p. 8)

Under this description, one of the lessons learned by experimenting with writing a performance is the chance that a new format to learn about a social process could pave a path for a discussion in terms that excide the quantitative norm. I mention this, because whenever the discussion about the territory is held by the company and community members, the discussion focuses on the quantitative data that show the impact or lack of it in the environment. Until now, the company measures the community in terms of productivity and how they can become assets of value for the production through a discourse of environmental sustainability, in which everyone becomes part of the mining process. In this case, the performance creates a space in which the intimate relations of the researcher can be used to advance the political discussion using a discourse that is not solely reproducing the logic of a productive model.

There are many stories that are hidden behind the measures, which from a feminist communitarian ethics should be included in a discourse that “represent[s] multiple voices, enhances moral discernment, and promotes social transformation” (Christians, 2011, p. 71). To gain access to this sort of discourse, it is necessary to claim feminist theory and praxis as part of research; otherwise, research could end as a mechanism of reproduction of logic that annihilates an agenda of social justice.