The Transnational Politics of Food Heritage in Bolivia and Mexico

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This session examines how government planners, preservationists, and entrepreneurs turn food and drink into heritage resources for culinary tourism and modern national cuisine in Mexico and Bolivia. These groups approach food heritage as if it were a discrete set of goods in need of safeguarding, while scholars have argued that heritage is less an identifiable thing than a constructed discourse strategically deployed to political, economic, or ideological ends. From Mexico’s successful bid to have its cuisine declared UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage to the re-branding of Bolivian indigenous food for tourism, we address the heritagization of local food in transnational and global contexts.

Sub Track

• Transnationalism and Globalization

Session Organizer

• Ronda L Brulotte, University of New Mexico

Chair

• Renata E Hryciuk, Uniwersytet Warszawski

Individual Presentations

• Poder, identidad y cultura alimentaria: Gastronomía y turismo en los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca - Miriam Bertran, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana

• Turning Mezcal into Mexican Heritage Through Transnational Circulation - Ronda L Brulotte, University of New Mexico

• Who is a “Cocinera Maestra”? Culinary Heritage, Neoliberal Multiculturalism, and Gender in an Oaxacan Zapotec Community - Renata E Hryciuk, Uniwersytet Warszawski

• Digital Scholarship and Heritage Foods in Latin America - Jeffrey M Pilcher, University of Toronto

• Reimagining Bolivian Cuisine: Plurinationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and Novoandino Gastronomy - Clare A Sammells, Bucknell University