Round tables > Food heritages, cultural heritages in the Americas

 Food legacies, cultural legacies in the Americas

 Friday, October 3rd from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM

Centre des Colloques, room 3.03

Organization : Alice Béja (CERAPS, Sciences Po Lille), Dalila Lehmann Chine (Études Romanes, Université Paris Nanterre), Natalia Molinaro (Études Romanes, Université Paris Nanterre) 

Speakers :Esther Katz (PALOC, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle), Aline Hémond (LESC, Université Paris Nanterre), Virginia Terry Sherman (ILCEA4, Université Grenoble Alpes), Alice Béja (CERAPS, Sciences Po Lille) 

Moderator :Emmanuelle Sinardet (Études Romanes, Université Paris Nanterre)

Abstract :

The round table follows in the wake of Food Studies. The aim is to anchor the discussion on heritages and cultural patrimonies in the Americas, by considering food as a constitutive element of the cultural heritage of American countries. Food will be seen as an element of identity that contributes to the (de)construction of cultural heritages in the Americas. Adopting a transdisciplinary and transnational approach, the discussion will focus on a number of themes, including

- Food heritages and the patrimonialization phenomenon: what discourses, representations and imaginaries?

- Food heritage as tradition: what sociability/ritual practices?

- Food legacies and memory: intergenerational transmission, migrations, emotions and affect, sensitivities.

- Food legacies and identity conflicts, whether individual or collective (gastro-chauvinism/nationalism), phenomena of hierarchization or domination.

- Food legacies and resistance: food as a form of cultural resistance (persistence of practices in an unfavorable context, to counter a hegemony, gain visibility, etc.).

- Food heritages: differentiated American heritages? North/South, Popular/Gentrification, etc.

Intervention Aline Hémond

In this presentation, I propose to address the issue of food practices and representations in the construction of migrant roots in the country of arrival. I will also focus on the forms of migrant identity that are staged or reshaped through the valorization, legitimization, or marginalization of certain foods or modes of preparation. My primary example will be that of an ethnography conducted since 2014 in Chicago in neighborhoods where Mexican migrants arrive, particularly in Pilsen and Little Village. I will focus on food purchases and consumption that take place in public commercial spaces in host neighborhoods. I will also seek to highlight the complexity of the forms of food heritage that merge in the United States, both diasporic and indigenous. I will then propose some points for discussion on the creation and circulation of the political and emotional dimensions of food, between transmission, memory, and identity, in a comparative manner between Mexico and the United States.

Keywords: Migration, Mexican diaspora, Chicago, food knowledge, gastrospace, sociability, incorporate, commercial spaces, anthropology of the senses, inhabiting.

Aline Hémond