Resumen

BARRERA JURADO, Gloria Stella. Fields of power in craftsmanship in the Kamsá community of Sibundoy, Putumayo, Colombia. From bartering to fashionable tendencies. Apuntes [online]. 2011, vol.24, n.2, pp.178-195. ISSN 1657-9763.

The Kamsá craftsmen and their craftsmanship play a very important role in the social and cultural life in the Sibundoy Valley. In their products, carvers, weavers, producers of musical instruments, basketmakers, and artisans working with beads represent in different ways histories, aesthetics, values, and techniques which give an account of the life ofthis community and ofthe relations with their environment and with the "others". Throughout history, the Kamsá have been visited by different institutions and organizations, which has caused conflictive power relations in terms of knowledge, creative processes, the organization of production, and the use of the handcrafts. The objective of this research is to interpret these power relations in the craftwork sector and the corresponding identity changes and continuities of the Kamsá community. In this research, five fields of power in craftsmanship - evangelization, the Peace Corps, the Escuela Bilingüe Artesanal Kamsá (Kamsá bilingual handcraft school), Artesanías de Colombia (Handcrafts of Colombia), and the Centro de Desarrollo Artesanal (handcraft development centre) - will be studied in their heterarchical dominant-dominated relations which generate autonomous, appropriate, imposed, or alienated cultural processes. Hermeneutics and participatory processes of co-creation have allowed elucidating the cultural resistance of these craftsmen, and this has been their great victory.

Palabras clave : Folk Art; Ethnic Identity; Colonialism; Kamsas - Social conditions; Colombian indigenous people - Social life and customs; Folk art; Ethnicity; Cultural identity - Putumayo (Colombia).

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