Embroidery as Empowerment and Exploitation: Gender Relations of Sani Women in Yunnan, China

Abstract

This research focuses on the study of life experiences, embroidery production, and trading practices of Sani female embroidery traders in Shilin Yi Autonomous County, Yunnan Province, People’s Republic of China. The objectives of study are to understand the impact of cultural commoditization on gender relations; how the embroidery trade opens space for both empowerment and exploitation; and how embroidery practice as form of gendered cultural capital is used to accumulate various forms of capital and negotiate gender relations in spatial practices. The three main concepts used in this study are gendered cultural capital, empowerment, and the commoditization of culture. The methodology of this research was primarily qualitative, including in-depth interviews, personal narratives, participant observation, and non-participant observation. Neoliberalism and cultural commoditization provided new economic opportunities for Sani female embroidery traders to accumulate different forms of capital. Based on Feminist arguments, this study contends that Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital is limited in that he did not take gender into account, and rarely considered women as subjects with capital-accumulating strategies of their own. In fact, Sani female embroidery traders are not only able to actively acquire different types of gendered cultural capital, in terms of embroidery skills, clothes-making skills, and trading skills to serve customers’ diverse preferences and to meet the market demands, but are also able to strategically utilize their social networks, including both kinship-based networks and non-kin networks, to maintain and expand their trade, further increasing their economic profits. As a result, they convert their different forms of capital (gendered cultural capital, social capital, and economic capital) into symbolic capital to defend their legitimate position in the household and in society. This is further represented by the word ‘lacao’, which refers to an ideal woman, emphasizing her economic contributions to the family, hard-working virtue, and ability to take care of her household. Moreover, Sani female embroidery traders apply various negotiation strategies with their male counterparts. The roles of “mother” and “wife” are the most common strategies used to mediate gender norms. Therefore, their economic participation was not initiated by individual autonomy or self-development, but rather by their familial stability. As they continued to work hard to fulfill their household responsibilities, they left no opportunity for their husbands to complain about them. As they increased their forms of accumulated capital, they obtained greater flexibility in traditional gender roles. As some husbands have had to take on the displaced responsibility of domestic chores, the stereotypical gendered space has been destabilized and conventional gender relations in both the household and society are challenged. This has changed women’s attitudes toward domestic violence and improved their social status, particularly the limitations on women’s mobility. This study has found that women face triple exploitation at the intersections of the gender, market, and state. Some traders, especially temporary traders, are exploited through the gendered division of labor within the household and in the production process, or capitalist market. Furthermore, some traders who became Intangible Cultural Heritage successors were exposed to additional state exploitation.