Pensado a través de la cestería seri: permanencia, innovación y memoria
Thinking Through Seri Basketry: Permanence, Innovation and Memory

Summary/Abstract: The permanence of Seri basketry has been explained by twentieth-century anthropologists as a result of its introduction into the local, regional, national and international markets and by the link of this activity to pre-Hispanic symbolism. As a result of thinking through things (Henare, Holbraad y Wastell 2007), a methodology on which this paper is based, the Seri baskets dictated the premises of their own analysis. In this paper I describe the Seri basketry manufacturing processes and techniques in order to highlight two mechanisms: the permanence of a production method (collecting, burning and peeling of the torote branches), and the technical variation that generates distinction in individual production (processing fibers, dyeing, weaving and creating designs). In both these mechanisms exogenous and endogenous elements and motifs are integrated in the baskets’ shapes and designs, thus producing innovation which is experienced by Seri women in El Desemboque, Sonora, as a process of personal creativity. Permanence and technical variation are connected through a female family memory, an expression of the fact that change is a condition for continuity.

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