Peanut soup with manaos

food and migration trajectories in productive private and public spaces

Abstract

The Platense fruit, flower and vegetable production belt, can be recognised as one of Argentina's fresh produce heartlands, a capitalised and important periurban area in the country due to the number of production establishments and the volume of their production. The aim of this article is to analyse food-related processes in this production area from an approach centred on its migrant history, especially Bolivian migrants. An anthropological and ethnographic methodology is used, with techniques such as participant observation, interviews, cartography and digital research. The results show that in both domestic and public spheres (‘comedores paisanos’ and legumbrerías), there is the conformation and expansion of a Bolivian food “we” that contains elements of the place of origin, of arrival and a mixture of both, a synthesis of the past, the migrant trajectory and the current conditions of life in the receiving society. This Bolivian food “we” is neither fixed, homogenous nor immutable, but must be read in the light of the central role of migrant producers in this sector, the productive transformation they have undergone and the more general dynamics of otherness, integration and exclusion, valorisation and devalorisation. It is concluded that these kitchens are a condition of existence in the productive cordon, because of their contribution to the physical and emotional reproduction of those who work there, because they constitute a place of enjoyment and desire.