Ethnography in the Historical Archive. Workers and Anxieties of the Casa Suárez in the Face of the Rubber Crisis, 1920-1940

Abstract

This article examines the Casa Suárez during the crisis of the rubber economy. Using Laura Ann Stoler’s (2009) method of «ethnography in and of the archive» as an analytical tool, I study the way in which the anxieties suffered between 1920 and 1940 regarding territorial insecurity and economic difficulties, affected the Casa’s perceptions of its workers. During these times of uncertainty, the Casa Suárez administration perceived all its workers as tools for combating the problems they faced. As a consequence, there was a change in the representations of the labour force, expressed, in the documents of the Casa Suárez. Workers were no longer seen as elements that had only to produce as much rubber as possible, rather as an occupying population that had to be maintained and protected.