Work 44 (2013) 93–96 93

DOI 10.3233/WOR-2012-01568
IOS Press

Unforgotten to the unforgettable: How

Arpilleras contributed to Chilean history
informing everyday occupations and social
change
Susan Traini
School of Occupational Therapy, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
Tel.: +1 519 643 6851; E-mail: straini2@uwo.ca

Abstract. Objective: The September 11, 1973 Pinochet military coup marks the anniversary of a changed way of life for everyone
in Chile and has influenced people around the world. This paper provides a reflection on the social, political, and personal
injustices faced by the women of Chile during a vicious dictatorship, through the depiction of an Arpillera.
Participants: This paper unfolds the women’s experience of occupational transitions and how they shared their stories of injustices
to the world at a time when almost all other voices of protest had been silenced.
Method: A narrative and historical reflection is used to offer an interpretation of the experiences of transitions among these
women.
Conclusion: Through the art of survival and a shared mission, the women of Chile worked outside of the traditional political
system to effect political change.

Keywords: Occupational transitions, occupational injustice, social injustice, occupational work transitions

1. Introduction social change in a system that undermines ones poten-

During my time in Santiago Chile, with fellow stu-
dents and professors, I had the opportunity to listen to
many people’s stories about work transitions. Work
transitions are conceptualized as occupational transi-
tions which influence health and well-being [4]. In oc-
cupational science, occupational transitions are defined
as “life course transitions, both normative, expected
and unexpected, that involves changes in what people
can do, are expected to do, or need to do” [4, p. 362]. I
will share one story about occupational transitions that
is most intriguing to me, as it is a story that creatively
and explicitly represents women’s fight for social and
human justice, in that it is unlike old feminist move-
ments that have joined political parties as a way of fur-
thering their aims [1]. In addition, it is a motivational
story that unfolds the success of achieving personal and
tial. Hence, the story is one that represents a common
transformational theme of survival to a political voice
that was manifested through an unexpected life style
disruption [4]. Throughout history, women have ex-
perienced disruptions in their daily lifestyle as a result
of war, politics, and social injustices [1]. As a result,
women in the past and present share a common theme
of occupational work transitions through the art of sur-
vival which have led and continue to lead to a political
voice/social reform of womens rights [1]. Additional-
ly, this story can be transferred to other stories of the
success in achieving personal and social change in the
face of system barriers. As a result of my academic
and practical experience as a student and traveling to
Chile, my view of occupational transition is that it can
be an individual or shared experience which is defined

1051-9815/13/$27.50  2013 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved
94 S. Traini / How Arpilleras contributed to Chilean history informing everyday occupations and social change
Fig. 1. An image of the Arpillera used in the paper to depict occupational and social injustices faced by women in Chile during the Pinochet
dictatorship. (Colours are visible in the online version of the article; http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/WOR-2012-01568)
by those who have experienced it and researched its
boundaries.
2. The story behind the Arpilleras
I will use an Arpillera to share a descriptive sto-
ry of the political impact on the occupational transi-
tions of women in Chile that will shed light on the
involvement of women in social reform and the fight
for occupational and social justice during a devastat-
ing era, the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1973. In
my opinion, Pinochet’s dictatorship resulted in many
environmental impediments to health promoting occu-
pations among women. Health promoting occupations
involve occupations that provide a sense of meaning,
choice, satisfaction, belonging, purpose, and achieve-
ment [2]. From an occupational therapy lens I feel
that, the barbaric social constructions of totalitarian-
ism, which characterized Pinochet’s regime, impacted
women’s engagement and participation in health pro-
moting occupations, which has been framed as occu-
pational injustice [2]. Hence, I believe that the ability
to engage in health promoting occupations as a per-
son and a member of society is occupational and social
justice. Before I share the occupational and social in-
justices faced by women in Chile, I will first describe
an Arpillera. Arpillera means burlap in Spanish; the
backing cloth is often of burlap or other feed or grain
sacks that often make up an Arpillera [1]. The Chilean
Arpillera I will discuss, like all Arpilleras, includes
“figures superimposed on cloth to create scenes full of
vitality and movement, whose principle effect is that of
political denunciation” [1, p. 12]. The scenes of “full
vitality and movement” depicted in the Arpillera in Fig-
ure 1will be discussed as they, like many Arpilleras,
portray protests for occupational and social integrity [1,
p. 12].
In my opinion, the Arpillera in Figure 1captures the
outcome of the social and occupational injustices and
the changes in the daily occupations of women in the
realm of everyday life experienced during the Pinochet
dictatorship. I will use the Arpillera above to analyze
some of the social system injustices, and transforma-
tion of women’s occupations. As part of this analysis
I will draw upon the work of Bartolo and Sheahan [2]
who suggest that a “critical analysis of economic and
socio-cultural occupational determinants, and their im-
pact on the form of occupations and occupational en-
gagement, is the basis for identifying occupational in-
justice” (p. 408).
3. The depictions in the Arpillera
In the midst of the vibrant landscape, as described in
Chilean history and the story behind the Arpilleras, are
representation s of the implications of a brutal dictator-
ship; these representations are depicted in the Arpillera
in Fig. 1: women teaching school outside due to loss of
electricity in the schools, women filling buckets with
well water due to the loss of running water, a wom-
an traveling by horse and buggy due to poverty and
low income, women performing the traditional male
 S. Traini / How Arpilleras contributed to Chilean history informing everyday occupations and social change
dominated home maintenance occupations like fixing
the roof or, physical labor such as construction jobs,
and women hanging up burlap flour bags on a clothes
line to dry for use in creating Arpilleras. In contrast,
the Arpillera also depicts activities of a normal Chilean
lifestyle such as picking fresh fruit from trees, children
playing outside, women and children bonding, a wom-
an feeding birds and most importantly the yellow sun
and the Andes mountains in the backdrop resembling a
sign of hope toward regaining a lost way of life. This
Arpillera like other Arpilleras helps preserve the mem-
ory of a time period when loved ones disappeared and
the Chilean way of life was impacted by a brutal dic-
tatorship; furthermore Arpilleras symbolize the occu-
pational injustices experienced such as unemployment,
food shortages, and housing shortages experienced dur-
ing Pinochet’s rule [1]. The story behind the story in-
trigued me so I looked further into the social, political,
and historical backdrop underpinning the occupational
injustices and subsequent changes to daily life in the
Arpilleras.
4. Historical influences on the occupations of
women in Chile
On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet
led a vicious military coup against Chile’s demo-
cratically elected Marxist government [1]. The secret
police, gathered thousands of Socialist Party mem-
bers, appointees, union leaders, and other suspected
protestors [1]. Thousands of husbands and sons were
detained and tortured; some disappeared and have nev-
er been accounted for and many women who supported
the socialist party were imprisoned. In addition, this
regime took over the water and electricity utilities in-
frastructure to profit from them, making it impossible
for people with little to no incomes in receiving ba-
sic services they previously assessed under the social-
ist government. The military under Pinochet shared a
belief that women were politically passive/uneducated
and uninvolved as they were encouraged to remain tra-
ditional in their gender roles as wives and mothers [1].
These political changes, beliefs and actions drastically
impacted the way of life for the women as depicted
in the Arpillera. The loss of husbands and sons who
worked and provided the means of support left women
who were suffering from these losses with little choice,
but to find a way to survive. In addition to fulfilling
the traditional roles of their husbands, such as earn-
ing an income and performing general maintenance,
95
they also had to change their own routines in managing
households. The loss of access to water and electricity
drastically added to their work and changed how they
cooked, cleaned and taught the children. The biggest
change was the women had to find a way to earn an
income. This government underestimated the impact
of injustice caused by the new regime and the resolve
as well as the persistent strength of women of Chile
to survive and overcome the seemingly insurmountable
challenges they faced. Furthermore the Arpilleras were
viewed as insignificant by military guards and regime
officials. The women took full advantage of their pre-
scribed role as mothers using their minority status and
the Arpilleras to fight for change.
5. The development of the Arpilleras and the
workshops
Many women began to participate in the develop-
ment of Arpilleras which was part of a grassroots social
movement of women and mothers of Chile fighting for
women’s and human rights. Chilean women became in-
volved in workshops and the development of Arpilleras
as one avenue to search for their disappeared relatives
as they would often stitch in pictures of lost loved ones.
Beyond this their involvement in the production of the
Arpilleras through the workshops served as part of the
transformation of women, providing them an income,
as a source of employment, a source of emotional and
social support and group therapy as they attempted to
make sense of the loss of family, and a place to learn
business management skills.
The Arpillera workshops consisted exclusively of
women who met several times a week in a church build-
ing in candle light so they would not be caught and
charged with slander [1]. Most Arpillera workshops
were organized by the Vicariate of Solidarity, a pro-
democracy group run by the archbishop of Santiago [1].
The Vicariate was responsible for finding a place to
meet, providing supplies in addition to the scraps of
fabric of the women’s clothes, and buying the com-
pleted Arpilleras and selling them abroad. The work-
shops were well organized; the workshop had a trea-
surer, a quality control manager, and someone to de-
liver the completed Arpilleras [1]. Despite the various
degrees of labour the workshops were very egalitarian;
the workshops were a good example of a successful
democratic social movement. The social interactions
within the workshops served to transform them from a
way of earning money to a social movement [1]. The
96 S. Traini / How Arpilleras contributed to Chilean history informing everyday occupations and social change
experience of having ones anxieties sewn on a piece of
cloth was a form of release; it was a sense of control
and integrity, a protest for social justice. The wom-
en explained the feelings they experienced when they
completed an Arpillera by stating, “A great anxiety at
having to express openly all one’s inner feelings, to
have to sew and put together every detail, but happy
to denounce what is happening” [1, p. 75]. Another
woman stated, “The Arpilleras were a beautiful kind
of therapy for me. I lived alone, coming back to my
house to sew and to weep caused me great suffering.
To relieve my anguish I made my Arpilleras” [1, p. 74].
In addition, a woman commented on the outcome of
the workshops by stating, “The Arpilleristas – house-
wives, seamstresses, laundresses- assumed a new iden-
tity that added an important dimension to their tradi-
tional female role” [1, p. 52]. Chilean women had to
make a transition from their domestic role in the home
to playing the traditional male dominated role as the
sole provider for the family. These new occupations
in turn helped to shape new identities. The workshops
provided a place for them to earn money and be politi-
cally active which lead to a newly assumed worker and
activist identity, a shift from the traditional female role
of domestic work in the home.
6. Conclusion
I came across the Arpillera above in 2010. The wom-
en today continue to make Arpilleras to support women
with low incomes through unemployment transitions
and in turn the story about the transitions of women in
Chile lives on. An Arpillera is not just an artistic wall-
hanging made of thread and colorful scraps of cloth;
an Arpillera is a mirage of a story that was destined to
be forgotten, a story of the abuse of power. I use the
word mirage because the beautiful scenery and colors
displayed in the Arpilleras appear as another piece of
artistry, yet they tell a story of brutality and occupa-
tional injustices. The mirage-like characteristic of the
“wall-hangings” was the key to their success of achiev-
ing social reform and justice in captive times. There-
fore, the Arpilleras are also lasting legacies depicting
the occupational transitions of the women during an
era in which they had little control; in the face of it all,
they managed to exert pressure, gain control of their
lives, and work together to promote change and oppor-
tunities for women. The Arpillera and its production
represent a support and resource during the political
era [4]. The women survived in the dark and managed
to paint a picture of an impossible time that shed light
on women’s rights and abilities, which I like to call the
art of survival. This story descriptively represents the
art of survival when faced with occupational change
and challenges that may be in ones way of achieving his
or her goals. The women of Chile created prosperity
for other women of their country and around the world.
This transformation of survival to political voice using
Arpilleras or art is a common thread that links many
women movements around the world [1]. As a result of
writing this paper I began to realize that each individ-
ual or minority can be as powerful as he or she desires
to be to make a change. The engagement in a shared
mission and creative occupation such as Arpilleras can
provide a powerful resource through horrific life dis-
ruption that can foster both social and personal change.
Furthermore, I view the Arplileras as representations
of perseverance, determination, and creativity which
are key ingredients to help make it through life’s chal-
lenges. Thus, these key ingredients can transform per-
sonal challenges of occupational and social injustices,
into a righteous socio-political movement.
References
[1] M. Agosin, Scraps of Life: Chilean Arpilleras, Williams-
Wallace Publishers, Toronto, ON, 1987.
[2] L.L. Bartolo and M. Sheahan, Industrial relations reform and
the occupational transition of Australian workers: A critical
discourse analysis, Work 32 (2009), 407-415.
[3] L.V. Niekerk, Participation in work: A source of wellness for
people with psychiatric Disability, Work 32 (2009), 455-465.
[4] L. Shaw and D.L. Rudman, Using occupational science to study
occupational transitions in the realm of work: from micro to
macro levels, Work 32 (2009), 361-364.