Paper short abstract:

The categories of male-female, productive-reproductive and paid-unpaid work are insufficient to understand the contemporary meanings that Rapa Nui culture attributes to work. Within family-based work structures, Rapa Nui people associate work with necessity, interest and personal self-realization.

Paper long abstract:

The purpose of decentering the study of gender labor inequalities allows us to reflect on the limits of the binary categories of male and female work, productive and reproductive, and paid and unpaid work in order to understand the contemporary meanings that the Rapa Nui ethnic group attributes to work.

In the Rapa Nui culture, people associate work with necessity, interest and personal self-realization. Most people learn to carry out multiple subsistence activities within the family from a very early age. Traditional work cultures, based on the use of the territory's resources, both material and symbolic, and on the practical transmission of knowledge, coexist and are complemented by more institutionalized occupations. This results in articulated and flexible family-based work structures. The latter is not only valued as a distinctive feature of Polynesian culture, but has also proved to be a valuable resource for subsistence in times of pandemic. Based on the ethnographic method, we present part of the results of the research project "Descentering Gender inequalities", Chile (ATE 210051).