Peddling Sweets and Pioneering Territory: black women and work in Colombia’s Caribbean Region

Abstract This article is the result of ethnographic research carried out with black women from San Basilio de Palenque, a black community located in the Colombian Caribbean. These women work as peddlers of different types of sweets in Colombian territories and neighboring countries. My ethnography followed the movement of Palenquera women who circulate with sweets, in order to examine the dynamics, movements, interactions and meanings of this activity in terms of race, gender and work relations. The women find social dignity in the universe of sweets, despite affirming and experiencing harmful effects on their bodies - that is, despite recognizing that peddling sweets is work that can kill, and that makes them “slaves” - and express positive valuations and emotions about the work. This dual meaning of working with sweets permeates the descriptions presented in this article. The trade offers a marginalized and ambiguous strategy that allows them to survive and promote their social mobility, especially by investing the material gains in the formal education of their children, and the sense that this marginal strategy, although it is difficult, provides them autonomy and dignity.

摘要：本文是针对哥伦比亚加勒比地区黑人社区圣巴斯利奥·德帕伦克（San Basilio de Palenque）的黑人女性开展的民族志研究成果。这些女性以在哥伦比亚境内及周边国家贩卖各类甜食为业。本民族志研究追踪了帕伦克女性携带甜食流动经营的轨迹，旨在从种族、性别与劳动关系的维度，考察该经营活动的动态机制、流动轨迹、互动模式与意义建构。尽管这些女性明确知晓并亲历着这份工作对身体的损害——即贩卖甜食是一种可能危及健康、甚至令她们感受“如同奴隶”的劳动——但她们仍在甜食经营的场域中寻获了社会尊严，并对这份工作抱有积极的评价与情感。这种双重意义贯穿于本文的全部描述之中。该贩卖活动为她们提供了一种边缘化且兼具模糊性的生存策略，使其得以维系生计并推动社会流动，尤以将经营所得投入子女的正规教育为显著；同时她们亦认为，尽管这份边缘性的谋生之路充满艰辛，却为她们赋予了自主与尊严。