UNIT 6

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Throughout all the Units I found it interesting how there is always the one thing that is very important to the whole indigenous community that dictates a lot, from the groups foodway systems, education, beliefs, housing, and even to their relationship with globalization.  Learning about the Uros was interesting as I never heard about this group before. Their Caballitos and islands really amazed me as they seemed to be straight out of a fantazy novel, I would honestly love to visit them one day if there was a method that I could do it in a tourist responsible manner.  For me this community really embodies the concept of adaptability and resistance against colonization. As the world becomes more globalized and international issues begin to affect groups at micro level, the Uros have really begun to innovate as an attempt to address their new reality. The Totora is such an important plant for the Uros community, yet their growing need and decreasing supply have really put strains in the community. Globalization has provided them an opportunity to capitalize on their identity and culture yet this also means that to handle the amount of tourists and visitors that come into the community they need to use more Totora to produce more, stronger, and bigger floating islands. They’ve even adapted the waste left behind by tourists and turn it into building materials for their islands and caballitos. This is specially important as the community seems to be struggling in cultivating more Totora due to climate change that has negatively affected their environment. while globalization has helped them create a stronger communal economy it has also affected them negatively as well. While I can recognize the negatives of the tourist industry, I don’t think I’m able to offer a strong opinion as to whether the Uros community should approach tourism and borderline cultural exploitation. I feel that is an issue that Uros leaders need to carefully consider and approach accordingly.

I also find it extremely interesting that the Uros community has had issues with the Quecha community, due to several historical events and issues. I think this a great example of how indigenous people are so diverse and how even though through our western perspective we might see these groups as very similar, in reality they are very different and not entirely able to collaborate peacefully. Putting the Uros and Quecha into the same Peruvian indigenous umbrella does them a great disservice and ignores the historical, cultural, and social differences that put them in conflicting views. While their foodways system and cultivation strategies have begun to become more similar in modern days, key differences between both groups still divide them and make their dietary customs extremely distinct.

Unit 5

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The Qeucha people are extremely interesting and one of my favourite groups that we have learned about during class. The vast variety of terrain within the local lands is incredible and just shows how the former Incan empire was formed out of the now more dissimilar independent groups that make up the Quechua nation. Learning how the Quecha groups actively try to maintain the culture and traditions brought down from the Incas was inspiring and shows similarities between the other groups we have previously learned about. The biggest difference though from the other indigenous groups, and what I find most interesting between them, is how the difference in local terrain creates huge differences between groups of Quechua. While most Quecha groups seem to have similar staples such as quinoa, potatoes, and local meats. The quantity of how much percentage these local staples make up your diet seem to vary depending on where you are located within Peru and the Indigenous lands. This is most likely due to the sharp differences in elevation and terrain that most likely create distinct agricultural patterns that developed the divergent dietary patterns. These differences in agricultural patterns and opportunities must be the main reason for the development of large complicated trading traditions and institutions. Since the Quechua languages are often extremely unique, I wonder if there are common phrases to describe food or other trading goods so that groups could successfully trade with each in the pre-globalized era. Maybe some groups have the local word for potato while using a general word when interacting between other groups. Rosie’s thoughts about this were very interesting and I would love to ask her more regarding the differences in food practices and if the differences in languages within the Quecha people may have a correlative or causative relationship with the differences in food practices.  Like Rosie said, the Incan empire must have been so huge that the differences in languages and food systems must be just a few remnants of the complicated institutions that once made up the Incan empire. 

 

If I’m not mistaken the Quecha people and the former Incan empire are the first group of indigenous people that we have talked about that successfully domesticated animals before the Colombian exchange period started. I can’t think of an equivalent situation as to what the Quecha people have done with Llamas and Alpacas. This ability to domesticate Llamas and other native animals must have come from a desire brought by the need to trade in difficult terrain and vast distances. As well, while they didn’t domesticate potatoes, they were able to successfully create a way to eat them without suffering any of the consequences of ingesting the chemicals within “wild” potatoes. While other groups we have learned about also innovated intensively, I would argue that the developments created by the Quecha people are so much more intensive because of the need to adapt within complicated and difficult lands.       

 

 

 

Unit 4

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Coming from a family with a proud Mexican lineage. My father and his side of the family have always been proud of having Indigenous/ethnic blood in us. While I can’t really guarantee the amount of percentage that makes us Indigenous, I do see that several of my family members follow strong shamanist indigenous spiritual rituals. A lot of these rituals are very specific to the area of where my dad’s family is from.  Even people from other Mexican cities are often surprised and/or confused as to some of the rituals that my Dad’s side of the family performs. Even my mom finds some of these spiritual cleansing and dietary traditions weird and unusual. Most of my Dad’s friends wouldn’t actually believe him that these were real traditions until they would visit his city of around 50’000 people about 4 hours south east of Oaxaca. Most people in my family’s city would perform the same traditions in a more communal manner than what we personally did back in Mexico City. I never understood why the movement of the stars and moon would dictate so much of our dietary restrictions in what seemed like a very subjective manner. After Tamara commented on my previous post on how it sounded very similar to the mayan traditions I wanted to do more research.  Apparently where my dad’s city is located, it was previously a large epi-center for what used to be the Mayan empire a very long time ago. While I do not see similar dietary restrictions based on Mayan cosmology, I do see some very interesting similarities in how cosmology was used in the Mayan culture and how it is used in my dad’s culture. Mayan cosmology was often used to show how seniors of the community were wiser and could better read the stars and moon. My dad’s city was the same, the seniors of the community would often go around house to house and church to church reminding people that today might have been a bad day to eat fish or drink hot water based on the day and position of the moon.  While the traditions and beliefs are very different from the Mayan culture, it is possible to see the possible inspiration that it may have had on my community through centauries later and in a post-colonized world. Just to be clear, I do not follow these traditions anymore since I’ve moved to Canada and these is very far from the norm that most Mexicans follow and adhere to.

Corn just like in the Mayan civilization is very important in my dad’s community. Till this day my grandma and several of her friends from the community (Comadres) use corn mixtures as substitute for items that aren’t just food related. I’ve seen them use it for basket weaving, as glue to repair dishes and furniture, and substitute for threads when pants or shirts would break. As a poor community, it was impossible to always fulfill your needs with consumerism and it has created a strong sense of self-reliance and imaginative problem solving in the community. Till this day my grandma and dad carry these attributes very close to their personality. As the land lacked strong infrastructure it was almost impossible to rely on raising animals and most food was gotten by growing common staples such as corn and beans. With many farmers and industrialists trying to move in the community, they slowly built a lot of resentment towards neo-liberal and capitalist’s projects that attempted to divide land to individuals instead of having communal fields for anyone to grow crops and provide for their families. Most of the community had a sense of interdependence and would rather have the whole city be poor than only a few people with ownership of land decided by foreign developers. Till this day my dad has very strong anti neo-liberal/capitalist sentiment due to his negative experience in his community. The community that my dad’s family is from actually supported the Zapatista movement very strongly. My very own grandma has had very strong leaders of the movement eat and have meetings at her house.

Unit 3 Reflection

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After going through a few Units now, I have noticed a pattern of conflict between indigenous communities and their complicated relationship with globalization. Tourism, research and development are some of the things that enthusiasts of globalization keep promoting to indigenous communities and leaders. The units keep throwing me at a place of self-conflict. In which I agree that communities like the  Garinagu and the Shipibo-konibo may get some benefits in accepting globalization but  I still see constant negatives from globalization such as the exploitation of culture and the requirement from indigenous communities to selectively reject their customs and traditions. Overall, the Garinagu seem to be actively forced to adapt into institutions set by a “foreign majority”. For example, I would argue that it was not their fault that the customary digestion of turtles had to be figuratively cancelled. If it was not for globalization, millions of species wouldn’t be extinct, yet we punish communities that had nothing to do with our actions that were guided by excessive consumption. While the articles and certain  perspectives seem to hint that globalization will result in economic growth, I would argue that it actually leads to economic dependency like a drug. Communities like the Garinagu do great with their current resources but as more and more foreigners introduce economic forces such as tourism money or foreign aid it increases the dependency slowly of globalized interference into the Garinagu community. I also see how the importance of women might decrease in the Garinagu community and in other indigenous groups with the slow introduction of globalization. Globalization puts less importance in local gastronomy and others arts such as a music, clothes, and storytelling which tend to have strong female leads associated with them. It diminishes the concepts that women in these communities tend to put great importance in. As well as people become more specialized and less dependent on the community, people will move from their lands and distance themselves from their roots. While I view globalization as extremely problematic, it’s also hard for me to make a concrete opinion as non member of the Garinagu.

Keyword #2 Cosmology

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For this post I would like to discuss the importance of Cosmology in culture, and the importance of cosmology itself within the area of cuisine and the conventions behind the traditional gastronomy of my Mexican culture. As a Mestizo Mexican a lot of my customs and in general my relationship with food has been heavily influenced by my families’ indigenous ancestry. My father’s side of the family is a lot closer to our indigenous roots and we would actually only be allowed to eat certain food depending on the day of the month due in part to the rotation of the moon and stars. Eating meat was extremely prohibited at certain periods of the week and month due to the specific setting of the moon. Combine that with our catholic religion and we could barely eat meat at all during some months. This is most likely why I have a strong affinity for sea food as we were able to eat it whenever we wanted to and we never had any negative judgements against us from certain family and community members. We also had to track the moon settings to figure out what type of water we would be able to ingest. When the moon was in the darkening stages of the month we were only allowed to consume hot water. So this lead to us drinking a lot of tea, hot cocoa (Champurrado), and even food could only be cooked and washed with hot water so we always had a lot of soups or hotpot style meals. During the “brightening” of the moon we could only have cold water so we needed to eat stuff that was consumable in a cold state, such as; Salads, Fruits, Veggies, any safe raw foods. A lot of traditions came from the small indigenous community my grandparents came from. Many traditions were originally adopted from the Aztecs but seem to be most likely developed to fit a more post-Columbus era narrative. A lot of traditions seem to be a mix of Aztec cosmology with the combination of Catholic values and conceptions. When we had to figure out what stage we were in and what we could eat we always had to ask the senior family members which actually resembles how Aztec communities had to constantly ask the senior leaders to explain and establish what could be done in the community using cosmology. Aztec leaders are known by researchers to have the ability to predict solar eclipses and other cosmic events at an impressive accuracy rate.

Unit 2 Ayahuasca and Indigenous Cultural Tourism

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Learning about the Ayahuasca Boom was extremely disheartening and emotional. Growing  up in a family with a deep connection to our Mexican indigenous roots it’s truly disheartening to sometimes see the appropriation of certain traditions for the use of simple pure entertainment or anything else that is unrelated to the original significance of the action. While I respect everyone’s right to experience culture I would prefer if people would just take some time to learn about the history and significance of certain actions when visiting and immersing themselves into a new culture. Regarding the Ayahuasca boom it’s surprising how much Amazonian tourism has lasted. With YouTube videos and Instagrams posts about it, I always thought that this was a new trend but learning about how it dates all the way to way at least the 1950s is surprising. While now less people refer to it by it’s traditional name, and instead prefer to call it Peruvian Healing, the same concepts and styles of Brujeria related to the Ayahuasca drink are still present till this day. It’s extremely hard to decide if this is good or bad, specially for a non-member of the community that these traditions are from. While many would argue that this is a bastardisation of the culture, it’s hard to argue that many communities and indigenous people’s of the area profit from Saviour-esque tourists. The traditions that they themselves own are able to create significant wealth for them, while also giving them a reason to maintain their deep traditions in a world where preference is given to the status quo in a globalized society. I would say tourism is a needed evil that people who don’t fit the status quo are able to benefit from and ensure the wealth being of their families. While it is disheartening to see the appropriation of certain indigenous traditions for myself, I acknowledge it is hard to argue against it coming from a place of privilege that many of my own community would not have.

Keywords #1

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The belittlement of the study of gastronomy has really negatively affected many indigenous groups of Latin America. Food for them is extremely important and a crucial piece of their culture and the development of their civilization. For me the most impactful words are Food sovereignty and food security and while they mean very different things, they are both extremely important in the self-growth of many indigenous communities. It is crucial that the academic world increases their efforts in the buildup of their studies on food and agriculture in indigenous Latin American groups. With the rise of climate change, loss of sovereign land and the inability to enforce human rights in the region many indigenous communities have lost the food sovereignty and food security that they have depended on for thousands of years. Modern global issues have created a troublesome environment for indigenous groups and it is imperative that the academic world helps and promotes the need to protect these two very crucial things. It is impossible for indigenous groups to preserve their food sovereignty when their environment changes so drastically and the alternative method of obtaining nutrition for their communities is to adapt to a McDonaldization of their agricultural and gastronomical process. Climate change cause by the over consumption of goods is forcing indigenous groups to leave their traditions and forcefully adapt to an oppressive majority at levels comparable to the initial conquest of America. Food security is also affected by climate change but also by the forceful removal of indigenous peoples from their lands. Both keywords are different yet equally important in the preservation of Indigenous people in Latin American.  

Blog Post #2 Readings and my thought of them in regard to Maslov’s Hierchy of needs

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While reading the different papers I realised that the study of agriculture and food systems is extremely interesting and crucial in the development of humanity that we can analyse throughout a degree of various disciplines. New modern academia has developed a greater respect for the intellectual study of food that according to Belasco was often alienated due to being seen as a female lead subject and for requiring the cross interaction of different disciplines which was very looked down upon in older academic institutions. If I could add a few points to Belasco I would argue that Maslov’s hierarchy of needs may also give us some explanation as to why food studies have been largely ignored till recently. I would argue that since food is one of the very lowest needs of human beings, academics and members of the cognitive elite tend to already be pass the point of worrying about their basic nutritional needs and thus prefer to focus on stuff that more closely aligns with their higher needs, such as politics, philosophy and applied sciences. Unfortunately the importance of food and agriculture in indigenous culture may be one of the major reasons why indigenous people have been largely ignored by academia. Just like Belasco stated, the study of food has been largely looked down upon and ridiculed and I would argue this is due to people thinking that food might be a primitive need like in Maslow’s hierarchy and thus cultures that emphasize an importance on gastronomy are just looked down upon as extremely uncivilized by western based academic institutions.       

I am from poem :)

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I am from Aloe Vera

From cold moist lands

and Fraser River

I am from pan

Vintage Black

Rust scent

From peaceful

From grandpa

and grandma

From Thyme

and Parsley

I am from the Molcajete

grinding

pozole

blackberry bush

and travel

Hi everyone! My name is Miguel and I’m studying political science. Taking LAST 303 completely compliments my major and allows me to expand on my interests of indigenous studies. I’m so excited to learn about food ways of several different Latin American indigenous groups. I really hope I can meet everyone and get a lot out of this course!