Food Field: Rationales of Food Practice among Agricultural Workers in Miguel Alemán, Sonora, Mexico

Abstract

The objective of this qualitative research is to analyze the rationales operating in the food field among migrant agricultural workers in Miguel Alemán, Sonora, Mexico. Observations, interviews and documentary and journalistic analyses were made. The results highlight self-consumption practices as strategies against the market, while people consume food according to the rationale of what is possible. Free food programs reflect food poverty, which, in addition to social violence, conditions food practice. This research’s limitation was not having information on migrants living in agricultural fields. Its originality lies in the fact that Bourdieu’s theoretical approach was used to analyze the feeding of an affected population. It is concluded that examining the food field allows to understand the logical meaning of the practice, by denaturing food decisions as an individual issue, and to identify the capitals that structure food practice and the situations that affect it, among migrant agricultural workers.

Keywords

• feeding
• food practice
• migrant agricultural workers
• rural migration
• Sonora
• alimentación
• práctica alimentaria
• trabajadores agrícolas migratorios
• migración rural