Going to Market

This week during one of our Spanish lessons our instructor, Patti, decided to finally show us where the central market of Cusco is. We learned culturally appropriate interactions and important words and headed off that way. I've been wanting to go the market for some time, but Patti thought we should wait. As excited as I was, however, it was nothing compared to the real thing.

When we arrive at the San Pedro Market, a little walk from the Plaza de Armas (or center of the city), there is a man outside dressed in a tight pink shirt dancing to 90s American Pop music. His show is apparently some form of resistance against gay oppression; he was dancing, singing, taking his clothes off and creating a general spectacle all while speaking about his experiences being gay. The crowd around him seemed to appreciate the entertainment and were quite intrigued by the show. We stopped for a few minutes to watch him and then continued on into the market place.

When we first entered the market it was into the textiles and clothing doors, but the interesting smells still presented themselves to us there. A combination of stale air, dust, cleaner, overly ripe fruit, and rotting meat. I couldn't wait to get to the food section, so we quickly strolled through the clothing section, stopping to chat with a couple of vendors--a mother breastfeeding her baby, an elderly woman sprawled out on the floor, and others, before we continued on to the center of the marketplace.

We first came out at the meat stalls, which were tall, white marble tables with slabs of meat (or the whole, skinned animals) laying across them. The women wore white coats and hats, similar to chef's wear and chatted amiably amongst themselves. I wasn't quite ready to approach the meat vendors yet, so we moved to the next section, which consisted of the fruit vendors. The fruits were beautiful. They were well arranged, very brightly colored, and huge. Patti informed us here that we should be wary of any fruit that looks too good, as this means its been doused in pesticides. Patti is interesting, in that she is of a higher socioeconomic standing than many other people in Cusco and often gives us a perspective that we had never considered or directly heard. Here she tells us that marketers are trying to cheat people by using dangerous pesticides to make their fruit look larger and nicer. I will give her that avoiding dangerous pesticides is a pretty valid point. Though I wonder to what degree the farmers have a choice?

Anyway, we spend some time talking with the fruit vendors. About their daily tasks, which fruits they like the best, what time they get to go home, etc. I buy some standard looking grapes and head on to the next aisle. Here is the bread aisle, with the classic Andean style of bread (large, flat, circular and a little sweet) stacked up 6 or 7 feet high from the floor. They are protected by a thin sheet of plastic, separating them from the ground. The bread women, sitting half-asleep next to their bread, spring to life when walk by. They circle around us and each offer us samples of their bread. I eventually buy one large (and especially delicious) loaf and move on, thanking each of them for their sample. We then enter the vegetable aisles, where women are sitting on the floor, chopping and preparing vegetables to be sold for slightly higher prices. I talk to one woman about her carrots, ask her the names of vegetables I don't recognize, and about her day. She tells me she has worked in the market so long that she doesn't even think about it anymore. I smile and buy her chopped carrots and peas. Patti pulls me to the side and warns me to wash them, because these women never think to wash anything before they tie it away in a bag, she says.

We meander through the rest of the market, past various spice aisles, down the flower aisle, and into the medicinal herbs aisles. The medicinal herbs aisles have quite a pungent smell. Strange ointments, tinctures, poultices, and everything else have been pre-made at these stalls and the aromas wafting off of them are sickly sweet, bitter, revolting, and everything in between. I have to hold my breath here. Finally, we arrive to the end of the market, where small restaurants are set up. It is here that I see men in the market for the first time. They are shouting orders to cooks, sitting at tables drinking chicha (corn beer), or just simply standing and chatting with other men. How interesting.  We stop at female-run stall and have some hot cocoa and flan, while talking to her about the day. She seems rather pleased and calls today a pretty successful one. She's at least made three sales from us.


And this is the market. A bustling place of endless goods, with women going about their daily lives as if they weren't at work, even while they work diligently to prepare foods for their loyal customers. Women are set up at stalls, on the floor, and even outside on the street, selling their various products and produce. There is the distinct feeling that it is a world of its own and that we are outsiders.

Author Betty L. Wells focuses on place as a determining factor of both economic oppression, opportunity, and resistance. In her article “Context, Strategy, Ground: Rural Women Organizing to Confront Local/Global Economic Issues” (from the book Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics) she states, "global processes are mediated through local practices, institutions, political structures, ideologies, and divisions of labor and prevailing cultural values. Our location shapes the look and feel of globalization." And I can't help but feel that this is exactly what is occurring in the marketplace. It has become a place that showcases Peru's economic hardships--where women, who must bear the brunt of society's care--come to ensure access to food and some meager economic earnings. They have created a network, a new culture out of this economic hopelessness and shaped a new face to globalization. Their work here in the market is both response and resistance to globalization. They have taken the despair of their economic situation and reworked it to create a whole new setting and culture where gendered norms prevail but in ways outside of the the cultural gendered trappings. They are women who work, yet their work is centered around food and care. However, they are entrepreneurs, business owners, and women with independent incomes and access to food. 


I have recently begun Florence Babb's book, Between Field and Cooking Pot: The Political Economy of Marketwomen in Peru, which details the rise of market culture and market women. Babb points out throughout the first chapters of this book that women in Peru, largely due to the legacies of colonization and lack of opportunities, must often resort to two types of jobs: domestic services (which are in the formal market economy but have low wages and offer no personal independence) or marketing (which is in the informal economy, but permits personal independence and access to food even if there is no money). Thus, as the economic crisis in Peru has deepened over the years, more and more women have turned to marketing as a way to survive.  Furthermore, Babb illustrates that “women play key roles in linking the subsistence sector to the commercial economy." Thus these women allow the poor access to the formal economy: the marketers buy food wholesale from individuals who support work in the formal economy (truckers, service providers, etc.), and then provide this food at reasonable prices to poorer Peruvians. In a way, they are directly providing a means of food security, in that they ensure that food will get from grower to consumer in a direct and inexpensive way. It is an interesting cycle that is both a reaction to the poor economic situation and a boost to food security at the same time. 

Regardless, the market is an interesting place that I believe can never truly be articulated, expressed, or pinned down into any single category or fully explored by even a handful of relevant theoretical approaches.