Feeling Survivance: Indigenous Women, Qualia, and Clothing in Highland Guatemala

ABSTRACT The article uses qualia—sensuous terms—to analyze talk about Indigenous women's clothing change in highland Guatemala, allowing scholars to access Indigenous ontologies and stories of survivance. People in Kaqchikel communities talk about young women's disuse of Indigenous clothing as a response to being “too hot” or having bellies that are “too soft.” An imbalance in temperature or pain is a way to become ill. Clothing shift is thus linked to preventing illness. Understanding women's clothing change as a response to illness allows Indigenous women who do not use their ethnically‐marked blouse to exist within and reproduce Indigenous frameworks because they treat their bodies through Kaqchikel ideologies of health and wellness. Analyzing interviews and clothing via qualia allows for documenting and understanding Indigenous people's survivance that would, in this case, look like assimilation to EuroAmerican styles.