Awajún Pottery, Gender, and Transformation: From Social Prestige to Market Logic

Pottery making among the Awajún has historically been a feminine practice that intertwined technical expertise, symbolic prestige, and community legitimacy. In recent decades, however, this practice has been reshaped by market-oriented logics and "cultural rescue" initiatives that have altered its original meanings and social functions. This study explores how the transformation of traditional Awajún pottery, historically a ritual, feminine, and relational practice, into a commodified cultural product has impacted the symbolic status, agency, and social recognition of Awajún women. Drawing on a qualitative, decolonial framework, the research was conducted in the Cayamas community in Peru’s Amazon region. The methodology combined five in-depth interviews conducted in the Awajún language (with intercultural mediation), participant observation, and informal conversations, supported by interpretive and thematic analysis. The study reveals that while the technical aspects of pottery making continue, the symbolic and epistemic frameworks that once gave the practice its cultural depth have been eroded by external interventions, market logic, and institutional discourses of “cultural rescue.” These changes have disrupted intergenerational transmission, diminished women’s traditional prestige, and introduced foreign aesthetic standards. Nonetheless, women’s narratives also show subtle forms of resistance and re-signification, preserving fragments of ancestral knowledge through embodied memory and daily practice. The commodification of Awajún pottery has led to a profound reconfiguration of its social and symbolic value. Beyond the loss of technique, this shift signals a broader epistemological displacement that threatens the ontological foundations of feminine knowledge and community cohesion. However, the persistence of memory, gesture, and relational practice offers a space for reclaiming cultural agency amid ongoing transformation.