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Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology
Volunteered - Oral Presentation Session
Claire Moll Namas
University of Cambridge
Considering the two kinds of value conflicts Robbins carefully proposes-stable value conflicts versus value conflicts produced by cultural change (2007), a lively discussion about new forms of value configurations might be had. However, I propose that his dichotomy can also be a springboard towards discussions of cases where groups of people approach cultural change value conflicts using the same methods in which they have always addressed the stable value conflicts. Using ethnographic evidence from my fieldwork in El Salvador, I demonstrate how rural Salvadorans navigate a culmination of two decades of privatization, cycles of migration to and from the US, and violence via a long practiced mode of collectively living out their values. This essay explores confianza, or deep trust, as something created and passed on between Salvadorans as a way to navigate the murky waters between the traditional value of solidarity and the increasingly structurally encouraged value of individualism.