“For my children, we have to cook.” Feed and care among migrant women in Buenos Aires

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a research on nutrition among Bolivian, Paraguayan and Peruvian women living in Buenos Aires. The objective is to understand, from an ethnographic perspective and with a gender approach, the modalities of organization and family distribution of culinary tasks, paying attention to local socio-economic conditions as well as to the appreciation of culinary traditions in migration contexts. The organization of family feeding is distributed asymmetrically according to gender and place in the kinship structure. Especially among women with children, food appears as a moral mandate. Food practices show the agency of women in the context of migration and subalternity. The preparation of traditional dishes is central to the constitution of social bonds of reciprocity and solidarity. At the same time, the gaze of migrant women is registered as responsible for the reproduction of culinary traditions, thus legitimizing social inequalities from the appeal to cultural values.