Protection and Sustainability of Women Artisans: Empowering, Governance and the Role of Women in the Wayúu Handicraft Supply Chain Through Action Research

Abstract

Wayúu women artisans constitute the fundamental pillar of sustaining an important cultural and ancestral legacy of northern South America. This article arises from a research proposal that seeks to promote the economic integration of these women, in the communities of Santa Ana and Cerrodeo (La Guajira, Colombia), with the rest of the actors in the supply chain of Wayúu handicrafts, under a sustainable approach. To achieve this, a sociodemographic characterization of the Wayúu artisan women (with their families) was carried out, likewise, the supply chains of their handicrafts were characterized, and strategies were generated for the possible integration of said women. The methods used were as diverse as the training of the researchers of the interdisciplinary team of social workers and industrial engineers; In this way then, a mixed methodology was used that included both methods of collection and reflective analysis of information given in qualitative research in Social Sciences, as well as more typical analytical and exploratory methods of quantitative research from Industrial Engineering in the management framework of supply chains.