The Movement and Stillness of Weaving: How Emberá Dobidá Women Imagine and Experience Urbanization in Medellín, Colombia

Drawing on twenty months of fieldwork conducted with Emberá Dobidá women in the city of Medellín, Colombia, this article aims to examine the detailed components of their recent urbanization. I trace how “weaving beads” in the city affects the ways in which Emberá Dobidá women imagine and live their urban experience. I suggest that specific movements, produced in the weaving practice, generate specific transformations, both desired and uncontrolled. I show how new aspirations have led women to desire “to sit at home” and to rely on weaving to find a certain stillness. Stillness is then active, ideally transformative and transitory, and potentially allows women to build a future outside the house. I also examine how women’s aspirations are broken by the reality of the weaving industry in Medellín which effectively makes them stuck. Repetitive, painful, unhalted movements generate disappointing urban experiences and prevent desired transformations.