What appears to be a book about Saraguro woven-bead necklaces turns out to be a meditation on the meaning of life. This ethnography explores what it means to live a good life for Saraguros in transnational worlds. Over eight years, anthropologist David Syring visited a Saraguro family in the Ecuadorian highlands learning la vida matizada through the art of beading.
With the Saraguros starts with the idea of la vida matizada, or the blended life, introducing readers to the Saraguro context. The book then weaves the experiences of three men—Benigno Cango who stayed in his village, his brother-in-law Maximo Sarango who migrated to the United States, and the anthropologist himself—to meditate on the nature of work in today’s world. The author then shifts to women’s experiences of work in Saraguro by looking at the members of a bead-necklace cooperative, especially the daily work of and apprenticeship with Ana Victoria...
