Development Projects for Women in the Indigenous Community “El Once”: An Analysis Based on Sharing and Difference

This article reflects on the representations of communal work and collective property held by promoters of income-generating projects in the Witoto community “El Once”, near Leticia in the Colombian Amazon. It focuses on the ways women get involved in development projects, in comparison with their organization for the production of handicrafts and subsistence agricultural crops. The main argument is that work in agriculture and handicrafts is organized based on a close connection between the body, the person, and the products of his/her work, in contrast with the development projects promoted by diverse external agencies, which assume a logic of communal work and collective property. All this has as a consequence the dissatisfaction of both parties –the promoters and those “promoted”–with the results of such projects.