I am something of a suspicious character in Alto Hospicio. First, I visibly stand out. As a very light skinned person of Polish, German, and English ancestry, I simply look very different from most of the residents of Alto Hospicio who are some combination of Spanish, Indigenous Aymara, Quechua, or Mapuche, Afrocaribbean, and/or Chinese ancestry. I am catcalled quite often, even while walking to the supermarket midday. These yells usually reference the fact that I am visibly different. “Gringa,” “blanca,” [whitey] and even “extranjera” [foreigner] are the most usual shouts. I hear. Even in less harassing ways, I’ve been pointed out on the street, as happened my first week in Alto Hospicio, walking along the commercial center a woman stopped in front of me simply to tell me “You look North American!” scurrying away before I could respond. 

maybe I look too much like her?

Beyond the striking impression of my physical appearance, I was untrustworthy as a single woman. Having no family in the area, not to mention a male partner or children was often a red flag for people. Even though many people I met had left family behind in other countries or regions of Chile when migrating to the area, they usually moved with a least one family member or friend. In a lot of ways, my solitariness kept me solitary.

As I got to know people, at times I felt I was being given a test. A colleague at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile had connected me with some politically active students in Alto Hospicio, and they invited me to help put up posters for a candidate for local representative before the elections in November 2013. I met Juan in the evening, outside one of the local schools where we made small talk before they others arrived. He asked me about my opinions on the Occupy Movement in the United States, and I spoke frankly, though keeping in mind his connections to Chilean Student movements. We continued talking about US politics and he asked if I had been very involved during my time in graduate school in Washington, DC. He asked about my support for President Barak Obama. And he asked very detailed questions about who I worked for, where funding for the research came from, and to what institutions the results would be reported. Eventually the other poster hangers arrived and we walked a few blocks to the home of his friend, where we were to mix up the paste for the hangings. As he introduced me to the group, he explained that I was “a trusted friend.” So I had passed the test.

Other tests of my trustworthiness took much longer. The first person I got to know outside of my apartment complex was Miguel, the administrator for the Alto Hospicio group I first joined on Facebook. Yet, it took over two months of online conversations before we met in person. Our chats at first were about the project, then about anthropology in general, while I asked him about his job at a mine in the altiplano and about his family. Later we conversed about television shows, movies, sports, and other hobbies. Eventually he told me funny stories about what his friends had done while drunk. I tried to reciprocate and realized my friends were far less rambunctious than his. Eventually, he invited me out with a group of friends to a dance bar in Iquique, and later I became friendly with his sister Lucia and her husband, often being invited to eat lunch in their home. Eventually one afternoon, sipping strawberry-flavored soda and finishing the noodles and tuna on my plate, Lucia asked Miguel how we met. He launched into a long story of seeing my post on the Facebook group site and being suspicious of it. He clicked on my Facebook profile and thought “What is a gringa like this doing in Alto Hospicio?” But his curiosity prevailed and he engaged me in conversation. As he recounted the story to his sister he eventually arrived at the night we had gone to the dance bar. “I was nervous standing outside the apartment, because I didn’t know what to expect. We had talked enough that I was pretty sure she was a real person, but I was still nervous. I thought maybe she wasn’t real. Maybe it was a fake profile. But then I saw her walking toward me and I just remember being really relieved.” 

In Northern Chile, most families have the radio on in the home at least 12 hours a day. The radio plays on public transportation busses, private cars, taxis, restaurants, and in service businesses like copy shops and food stores. Older residents report that music has been ever-present this way as long as they can remember. When a song they dislike begins to play they may change the radio station, but they quickly find something more to their taste.

Younger people, however, are pickier. They like many genres and bands that are not played on the radio. They usually dislike Cumbia music (local to the Andes) and Reggaeton (a global form of club music that mixes dance and reggae rhythms), which are the primary songs featured on the radio. For that reason, many younger people prefer to play music with their mobile phone and computer. In fact, this is one of the only ways to select music as the only other place to get music is from vendors at the local market which sell illegally copied cds (called "piratas"-pirates). 

To be clear, I was always treated with kindness and respect by the luchadores while training and performing. Of course there was always an element of tension around issues of gender and sexuality. I was a white woman, highly educated, from a middle-class background in the United States. I wrestled with working-class mestizo men from La Paz and El Alto, of varying ages. Our relationships were always professional. Occasionally one would invite me to dinner at his house, and I would have to weigh several factors—our interactions up to that point, the time he had suggested, whether other people would be present, and what I might know about his current familial and romantic situation—before deciding whether to accept or reject. 

I rejected a request from a 50 year old luchador to accompany his family to a festival that would go late in the night, but agreed to meet him for tea later in a public restaurant in El Alto, trying not to alienate him to the detriment of my research. I accepted an invitation to a 27th birthday party for another luchador, which took place in a bar, and to which several of the other luchadoras were invited. I hoped this would allow us to be friends more than just wrestlers who train together. He tried to kiss me goodnight, but I quickly slipped away, and neither of us ever mentioned it again.

These experiences were in part because I was doing research in a male-dominated social setting. Indeed, in many ways, they served to inform my analyses of what Bolivian women might experience in their own involvement in wrestling. Of course my gringa-ness, foreignness, and lack of familial ties to anyone in the group make my situation slightly different. But these instances still tell us something about gender relations within the context.

But these experiences are not related just to my subject matter. In my current research, I have to be wary, not only of walking alone at night in Alto Hospicio, but also of the advances of police officers and public city officials when they send me non-work related Whatsapp messages. I have spoken with countless women about their similar experiences, one of whom was even evicted from her apartment in her fieldsite in a small conservative Middle Eastern  area after refusing the advances of her landlord.

To say that these experiences are frustrating is an understatement. They are not just an annoyance of daily life, but they profoundly impact one’s ability to do research, and maintain community ties. In just three short days it will be the two-year anniversary of the day I finished fieldwork. Yet I still feel the effects of these types of gendered relations.

Today I received a facebook message from one of the more senior and well respected luchadores in La Paz. At first I was flattered to receive a message because he asked when I will be wrestling again. “Quiero venir a verte” [I want to come watch you]. But the conversation quickly turned

*Pseudonym

And with that I most likely lost an important contact. Of course, I’m in a better position now, because my fieldwork is finished, some of it is published, and I’ve moved on to a new project. But I’m stuck now in a position of whether I even mention this to Jorge*, my former wrestling partner, and a fairly good friend. Do I continue as a friend always wondering if he is telling others that I am something of a significant other or sexual plaything to him? Do I mention it to him and confront the problem head on, most likely with little benefit either personally or professionally? Or do I assume what this older luchador said to be correct and silently stop being his friend.

I realize this is the type of problem many anthropologists face, regardless of gender, regardless of region, and regardless of topic. But as I recently wrote about the perception of women anthropologists flirting, extroverted actions of men are interpreted differently than those by women. This is something that will not be “solved” easily, particularly when we consider that many times this happens in places where there is less awareness of “rape culture,” less ability for women to participate in social life, and more complicated relationships between race, class, cosmopolitanism, and locality. I do intend to keep up a conversation about it though. 

In the course of writing a book, there is a lot of stuff that gets written, and then, sometimes very traumatically, cut. Here is the second in a  short series about social media use in Alto Hospicio, as based on survey data. I have done the writing, but I must give thanks for the incredible efforts by my assistant Jorge for helping recruit and administer the survey. It certainly would have never been completed without him. 
For part one, click here: facebook: the facts
For part two, click here: whatsapp: the facts
For part three, click here: twitter: the facts

Perhaps in part because of the former popularity of Fotolog, Instagram is well used in Alto Hospicio, with 22% of survey respondents saying they used the app. particularly by teens and those in their 20s. In my survey of social networking users, Instagram was used by 35% of teens, 26% of 20-somethings, 21% of 30-somethings. No one over 40 on the survey reported using the application.

While Fotolog was a site aimed at uploading digital pictures and allowing the poster to add a caption and friends to “like” or comment on photos. Instagram is similar, but requires a smartphone or tablet that works on an application operating system, in order to upload photos. Instagram crops the photos into squares and allows users to choose “filters” which change the contrast, color tone, saturation, and focus of the photos. What results is often something that looks like an over- or under-exposed polaroid picture. For many users worldwide, this is the appeal of Instagram—turning the ordinary into the beautiful. Yet most users in Alto Hospicio seem content with portraying the ordinary.

Teen users often post several pictures a day, usually of mundane items like new gym shoes, breakfast, their freshly washed car, “selfies” while at school, and photo collages made with another app. Older users in their 30s tend to have more artistic subjects to their photos: the beach, the hands of a large group of people toasting at a bar, flowers, lone trees against a sunset, or somewhat artistically composed portraits of friends (often in black and white). Often they post these photos both on Instagram and on Facebook. As the reverse of Twitter for Instagram, for many users Instagram serves as an add-on to Facebook, allowing them to enhance the photos they post there, rather than serving as a photo posting site in it’s own rite.

This artistic usage of Instagram is well-known even to those who usually post photos of less “artistic” subjects. Having followed a few of the Red Foxes Offroading Club members on Instagram, I was used to them primarily posting pictures of their vehicles, but their explanation of the application differed from their usage. I had been invited to an asado [cook out] at one of their homes on a lazy Sunday afternoon. When I arrived everyone was looking at Jhony’s new Samsung tablet phone. Though Jhony, at 29 years old, was one of the youngest members of the group, he admittedly was the least technology-literate. “I need Facebook and WhatsApp, but I don’t know what else.” He said to the group of 7 men. Answers were shouted from all directions: Shazam, Skype, Google Chrome, Youtube, and Instagram. “What’s Instagram for?” asked Jhony. Alex explained “You upload pictures and the whole world says ‘I like it!” “Oh, so it’s good for my self-esteem?” Asked Jhony. Alex agreed, sarcastically adding “Yep, it makes you feel like a real photographer.” Paul agreed, adding “It's for ugly people like us. You take pictures and we come out looking good. It works like magic.” Their comments were obviously satirizing the way other people use the application, rather than reflecting their own use, but they still appreciate that Instagram might make their photos of tire tracks in the sand just a little more aesthetically pleasing. 

Aside from the option of aesthetically enhancing photos with Instagram, it’s most important aspects are those related to interacting with other users. Like Fotolog followers can like or comment on a friend’s photo. And like Twitter within captions and comments people can “mention” other users or “hashtag” terms for searching. The hashtag functions is often used, especially by younger Instagrammers, to solicit more followers and likes. Sometimes this is explicit, as in when they use terms such as #instalike #instafollow #like4like or #follow4follow. These essentially suggest to others that if they like the picture or start to follow them, the user will reciprocate by liking photos or following their account as well. Other hashtags are used with the same goal in mind, but with less explicit deal-making. #InstaChile #Iquique #Altohospicio #Galaxy4s are all commonly used tags, as well as those describing what appears in the photo such as #lunch #mountain #beach #child or #shoes.

Most Instagram users leave their account open so that anyone can see their pictures or follow them. In conjunction with the use of hashtags, this allows for a much wider audience than family and friends in Alto Hospicio interacting with these users. As many people mentioned to me throughout surveys, Facebook is primarily for communicating with family, friends from school or work, neighbors, and other people with whom you have or have had a relationship face to face. Twitter and Instagram take as a base these face to face friends, but supplement it with as many strangers as possible. Though most usually end up being within Chile, and a few in other parts of South America, there is still a sense that Instagrams and Tweets are being broadcast to a wider world. This is more true of younger users who utilize hashtags for search purposes, than those in their 30s who primarly use it as a way to beautiful photos that are bound for Facebook.