Revista Colombiana de Sociología (Jul 2017)
The mirror effect: sex, gender, and care in the professional trajectories and moral and labor hierarchies of anthropology in Colombia
Abstract
This article examines how gender, sex, and care work have shaped the professional practices and labor careers of several cohorts of anthropologists who obtained their undergraduate degree from Universidad Nacional de Colombia between 1985 and 2010. Our findings draw on a qualitative research project that combined ethnographic, biographical, and historical approaches. We conducted 35 interviews (34 in-depth interviews and one group interview) with eighteen women and nineteen men, who fulfilled the following criteria of a conceptual sample: three graduation periods (1985-1991; 1992-2005; and 2006-2010), place of birth, socioeconomic status, sex, generation, age, marital status, and field of professional practice. We analyze the ways in which the obligations assumed by our interviewees with their parents, relatives, and offspring, and with their own self-care, have led them to interrupt their training or delay their graduation. We also explore how these kinship duties have resulted in differing and gender-biased work options and employment histories for men and women. We argue that both gender representations and practices of professional and applied anthropology and of science and technology have conditioned the asymmetrical careers of these anthropologists, as well as those of their peers. This paper explores, in addition, how their work histories have also been marked by unsatisfactory and often precarious work and employment conditions. Finally, we purport that an intersectional analysis of gender, ethics of care, and care work contributes to the understanding of Colombian anthropology´s distinct practices and orientations. We support this argument by analyzing the peer culture that invigorates this discipline and fuels confrontation between the labor and moral hierarchies that govern its professional and applied fields.
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