“They Too Can Help”: Hidden Producers and Flexibility in the Organization of Collaborative Labor in Pottery-Making Households in Michoacán, México From the 1940s to 2020

ABSTRACT

Eight decades of ethnographic research provide a rich dataset for studying the changing organization of labor in households involved in specialized pottery production in the Purépecha region of Michoacán, Mexico. Relevant ethnographies are examined to identify the contributions of household members who might be considered “the potter” and the “hidden producers” who are integral to production. This study finds task differentiation, flexibility in task allocation by age and gender, innovation in response to market demand, and changing household composition, together with persistence of household-level pottery production across eight decades. The task-based division of labor and flexible allocation of tasks to different household members facilitates intensification of production, when necessary, and its persistence through political instability, shifting markets, population increase, state-level intervention in pottery production, and wage labor migration out of the region. This approach provides a dynamic, longitudinal model for understanding the organization of household pottery production in the past.

KEYWORDS:

• Purépecha
• potting ethnography
• labor organization
• specialized ceramic production
• gender
• division of labor
• household
• Michoacán

Acknowledgements

The ongoing Ceramic Ecology sessions at the American Anthropological Association annual meetings influenced the origins of this paper, and I thank Charles Kolb, Konstantina-Eleni Michelaki and especially Sandra L. Lopez Varela. Several colleagues provided instrumental insights or assistance as this project developed, including Helen Pollard, Dean Arnold, Christopher Pool. I thank Brenda Bowser and Kathy Kamp for their editorial contributions to the development of the manuscript, and I greatly appreciate the constructive comments provided by James Skibo and the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript. Monika Becker and Juliane Schüngel provided translation assistance with the German in Engelbrecht’s ethnography; any errors in understanding or citing Engelbrecht’s work are entirely my own responsibility, as are any errors in the paper as a whole.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Amy J. Hirshman

Amy J. Hirshman (Ph.D. Michigan State University) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at West Virginia University. Her research focuses on the ceramics and ceramic producers of the Tarascan State (A.D. 1350-1525), and the nexus between potters and the political economy of the state. She incorporates a multi-method approach to the archaeological record; her research has been published in a number of journals and edited volumes.