could they say such a thing, being campesinas themselves!’” In an assertion of empathy and equality with her friend, Deysi implied that Doña Saturnina could easily have just as easily found herself listening to her own children’s stories of racial and class discrimination. Deysi’s analysis of the joke gone awry seemed to be that she and Amanda had been justifiably reprimanded for asserting racial superiority. Doña Saturnina’s family, in sum, alternated between identifying with superior and inferior racial and class categories and between professing superiority and egalitarianism.
Envy (Envidia)
The common language of envy (envidia, qhawanaku, miramiento)11 in Sacaba marked the clash between the widespread ethic of egalitarianism and the equally widespread ethic of upward mobility. When David, for example, expressed a concern that his old friends and neighbors in Choro resented him as snobbish, he said that they were envious (miramiento) of him. He explained in an interview with me in 1998,
I treat my people well. I speak with them in their language … in Quechua…. In fact, I try to change them, right? I say “You shouldn’t do this…. We need to develop,” … or “Instead of spending your money on this thing, you could do another thing,” always thinking about how they can progress…. I haven’t kept myself apart from them … but people talk, you know? I mean … I’m a serious person, I have a calm demeanor, and people peg me as stuck up [creído]. But it’s they who are separating themselves from me, it’s not because I’m stuck up…. People my age say, “He’s a doctor, so now he won’t say hello to us.” Who knows what they’re saying! So, sometimes when we pass by on opposite sides of the road, they just … say “good morning” and go by, they don’t come up to me…. I think that they feel … I’m not sure … mmm … humbled, ashamed.
David described, with apparent pain, that he was misunderstood as being snobbish; that his intentions were egalitarian but his Choro neighbors and old friends misperceived him as acting socially superior since becoming a professional. In this instance, David did not condemn his former friends’ envy as a moral fault but rather lamented that their ill-will emerged from a misperception of his thoughts and intentions. The implication of their perceived criticism was that David, by believing in his own social superiority, was socially selfish. He suggested that his old schoolmates harbored particular rancor for him, beyond what they might feel toward a snobbish stranger, because they saw him as rejecting them despite belonging to the shared social community of Choro. David countered with the implicit argument that he was not selfish but actually generous, because he tried to contribute to the progress of those old friends by offering them helpful ideas for how to become upwardly mobile themselves. He found, however, that his efforts to present himself as egalitarian had been unsuccessful.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
