Crazy cleaning ladies and industrious bodily techniques in a working class village

Abstract

Despite its presence in everyday life, the cultural production associated with the vernacular figure loca de la limpieza – the crazy cleaning lady- is a scarcely studied phenomenon in Latin America. Trying to contribute to this vacancy, I research with an ethnographic approach the way in which industrial working class women are trained in body techniques to become housewives cleaning experts. The work is divided in three parts. Firstly, I define the training in these bodily techniques as an embodied practice associated with distress. Secondly, I describe some of the instances in which women learn cleaning up methods. Thirdly, I demonstrate that learning to clean is considered accomplished when women acquire tactile, olfactory and visually informed dispositions that allow them to feel dirt in their own bodies. Finally, I link loca de la limpieza identity to the productive system in which it is lived as social praxis.