The Female Orality of the Harawi as an Expression of Memory and Cultural Resistance

The female oral tradition of harawi constitutes a living cultural expression in Quechua-speaking Andean communities, where song is configured as an instrument of collective memory and identity. This study aimed to understand how women, through harawi, construct spaces of cultural resistance in the face of processes of forgetting and social transformation. A qualitative approach was adopted, using an ethnographic and phenomenological design. Data collection was conducted over a period of one hundred and twenty days through semi-structured interviews, participant and non-participant observation, audiovisual recording, and documentary review. The findings show that harawi not only preserves ancestral knowledge but also strengthens female identity and the intergenerational transmission of the Quechua language. Subtle forms of symbolic resistance to linguistic and cultural stigmatization were identified. It is concluded that female harawi oral tradition constitutes a mechanism of living memory and an active practice of cultural affirmation in Andean communities.