Food, Power, and Resistance in the Andes: Exploring Quechua Verbal and Visual Narratives

by Alison Krogel

Food, Power, and Resistance in the Andes is a dynamic, interdisciplinary study of how food's symbolic and pragmatic meanings influence access to power and the possibility of resistance in the Andes. In the Andes, cooking often provides Quechua women with a discursive space for achieving economic self-reliance, creative expression, and for maintaining socio-cultural identities and practices. This book explores the ways in which artistic representations of food and cooks often convey subversive meanings that resist attempts to locate indigenous Andeans-and Quechua women in particular-at the margins of power. In addition to providing an introduction to the meanings and symbolisms associated with various Andean foods, this book also includes the literary analysis of Andean poetry and prose, as well as several Quechua oral narratives collected and translated by the author during fieldwork carried out over a period of several years in the southern Peruvian Andes.

By following the thematic thread of artistic representations of food, this book allows readers to explore a variety of Andean art forms created in both colonial and contemporary contexts. In genres such as the novel, Quechua oral narrative, historical chronicle, testimonies, photography, painting, and film, artists represent Quechua cooks who utilize their access to food preparation and distribution as a tactic for evading the attempts of a patriarchal hegemony to silence their voices, desires, values, and cultural expressions. Whether presented orally, visually, or in a print medium, each of these narratives represents food and cooking as a site where conflict ensues, symbolic meanings are negotiated, and identities are (re)constructed. Food, Power, and Resistance will be of interest to Andean Studies and Food Studies scholars, and to students of Anthropology and Latin American Studies.

Genres: Food

254 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 2010

Reviews

[Ibrahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really informative book with an exhaustive deep dive into Quechua mythology and social-capitalist relations vis-à-vis food. I really appreciated the index and the author's attempt to integrate Quechua vocabulary into the reading experience - it was a bit tedious to cross-reference every term with the appendix, but it added to the inculcating experience, which was definitely a net-positive. I also enjoyed learning quite a bit about the different types of potatoes (of which there are over 3000, by the way) in Peru, and their role in the traditional diet of the Andeans (an affinity towards potatoes and a mild hostility towards rice/bread). Krögel is quite effective in referencing the dynamics of food as far back as ancient Quechua folktales up to modern Peruvian film productions like Madeinusa (2006), as well as the ostensible relationship between femininity, "witchery", and the manipulation of food for karmic gain in both pre-colonial and post-colonial contexts. She also augments her analysis with fieldwork and visual-poetic pieces. A very good effort.

[Oleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes the same conclusions are repeated from chapter to chapter but overall it's a worthwhile journey to the culinary landscape of the Peruvian Andes. From a guinea pig in the center of the Last Supper depiction in Cusco to explanations of Quechua grammar peculiarities, the book contains a lot of interesting facts about food and culture of the region.