Coping Through Comfort Food: An Anthropological Investigation Of Health, Wellbeing, And Eating In Oaxaca, Mexico

• In Event: Food for care: Interrogating practices of eating in troubled worlds - II

Abstract

Coping mechanisms help people who have been displaced from their homes during crises, but what happens when the displacement is social, and people are forced to shift inside their homes? The COVID-19 pandemic presents itself as a novel opportunity to examine how people cope with this sudden shift into their homes and its impact on their choices about health and wellbeing. Specifically, I investigate how people use food as a coping mechanism to the COVID-19 pandemic despite structural barriers that are limiting food access/choice. Building upon pilot data from participants in Oaxaca, Mexico, who claimed to be choosing healthier foods despite the pandemic’s structural and social barriers, I explore questions of the mundane as I ask about people’s perceptions of their diet before and after the pandemic and biologically examine the embodiment of these choices. This project aims to examine if people have acquired new habits and perceptions about food and the impact these new choices may have on their bodies. Using methods in cultural (ethnography, free lists/pile sorts, interviews, questionnaires) and biological (nutritional analysis, bodily measurements) anthropology, I explore the concept of care through coping practices concerning food selection and how this nourishes people’s bodies in low-income communities. I use a critical biocultural perspective to further understand how people rethink their behavior and operationalize how people build resilience to social and structural barriers through their food choices.

Author

• Kayla Hurd, University of Notre Dame