Paqueteros and Paqueteras: Humanizing a Dehumanized Food System

Meant To Be Eaten

English - January 31, 2021 21:01 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MB - ★★★★ - 6 ratings
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This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies <https://online.ucpress.edu/gastronomica>, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Jaclyn Rohel. Alyshia Gálvez explores the work of transnational food couriers known as paqueteros and paqueteras. These informal grassroots entrepreneurs connect people and places across international borders through the delivery of goods, care packages, and specialty and traditional foods. Drawing on ethnographic research of micro-local foodways in Mexico (Puebla) and the United States (New York) and the connections between them, Gálvez discusses how informal food couriers humanize an increasingly industrialized food system in the post-NAFTA landscape.

Please note that around the 10-min mark, Professor Gálvez mentions having been asked by federal attorneys to serve as an expert witness, while she meant to say that she had been approached by public defenders in that capacity.

Photo courtesy of Alyshia Gálvez.