Biocultural memory and transitions in mountain food systems: the case of two indigenous communities from Chile and Mexico
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Date
2018
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Abstract
Food is not only nourishment. Food feeds knowledge, practices, and beliefs through generations, and thus it sustains biocultural memories. However, prevailing economic models homogenize biocultural food systems by replacing local diversity with fewer market products, often leading to nutrition-related chronic diseases. This research explores local biocultural memories around cooking spaces, wild food gathering and home gardens to reveal changes in foodways in families from Andean landscapes in Mapuche territory, Chile, and from Chiapas’ Highlands in Tzotzil territory, Mexico. We used food diary elicitation, participant observation, and informal and semi-structured interviews. In both cases, food items have changed, as has the way they are procured and prepared. Traditional foods are being replaced by foods associated with modernity and progress. Perceived drivers of change include shifts iŶ childreŶ’s food prefereŶces, lack of tiŵe for food procurement and temporary migration, and a decreasing production of grains and vegetables caused by reduced land tenure and soil depletion. Data show that the intake of locally procured ingredients is higher than intake of market-based products during the summer season, while consumption of market-based foods increases during seasonal scarcity. Rice and noodles have replaced traditional foods like locro, soplillo, and quinwa among Mapuche families, while noodles, industrial tortillas, and soda are replacing corn tortillas, quelites and pozol among Tzotzil families. Though distant, mountain food systems from Mexico and Chile face similar processes of biocultural homogenization with notorious increases in nutritionrelated chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. Biocultural memory is a powerful link to recall food-related experiences and practices. This can be the basis for culturally appropriate and healthy eating habits, and to recover local diversity thus strengthening food systems and sovereignty.
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Keywords
Indigenous studies, Food science, Nutrition, Political ecology, Biocultural diversity, Food and nutrition, Biocultural, Anthropology, Ethnoecology, Wild/Indigenous, Traditional food plants