Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Food drove Mesoamerican civilisations to transform the environment and develop strategies to sustain their societies prompting the creation of social, symbolic, and spatial dynamics that resulted in unique food identities. This helps us understand why the agricultural-food heritages of Mexico are the result of geographic, historical, and cultural specificities shaping food systems, and agricultural practices of environmental management. Soil degradation around the world is one of the key causes of food insecurity, and it is partly the result of the use of genetically modified seeds in industrial monocrops threatening the survival of entire ecosystems. Moreover, it has displaced native seeds, and traditional farming practices that for centuries have helped maintain a sustainable relationship between communities and the environment, this context of high uncertainty exacerbates historical problems present in post-colonial societies that are the product of structural, and systemic forms of violence. As a response to these conditions, in Mexico, there is an encouraging rise of grassroot movements working towards the defence of agricultural food heritage among farming communities that range from mestizo (mixed heritage), indigenous and afro-descendants using strategies that range from social economy, networks, permaculture, ecotourism and education empowering traditional agricultural practices and fightting forms of oppression, discrimination and violence. By studying and bridging these experiences of struggle, resistance, and solidarity we can work towards creating new forms of allyship and develop culturally adequate strategies to achieve food sovereignty and security for farming communities while promoting environmental conservation and the protection of traditional food systems and their cultural practices.