Mapeos alimentarios: aportes antropológicos para pensar cartografías colectivas en una organización campesina argentina

The objective of this research is to recover the construction and realization of a type of social cartography, called “food mapping”, by an Argentine peasant organization. Its nomination as “mapping” does not explicitly refer to a geographical place, but it allows to account for the way in which people situate themselves in the world and transform it, based on their food. This mapping is carried out mainly in the horticultural areas of La Plata and Buenos Aires (Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina), epicenters of food production, along with other localities in the country. From an anthropological and ethnographic approach and perspective, two techniques were used: i) the reading of the maps according to the frequency of the preparations mentioned in them, and ii) the observant participation and participant observation during the realization of the maps. The technique of counting the frequency of food and beverages on the maps shows that 8.3% of the preparations are natural, 74.9% are processed; 16.8% are ultra-processed, and almost 42% of the total are regional or typical. It also allows us to observe continuities and transformations in food consumption, such as the recreation of regional foods in new contexts, as well as the massive incorporation of ultra-processed preparations. From the field analysis, the discussion on the territorialization / deterritorialization and personalization/de-personalization of food; the productive, access and consumption processes linked to them; and the affective, family and collective memories that nestle in them are recovered. It is concluded that the implementation of this cartography exceeds its initial purposes, of reflection on food consumption in an individualized manner, to become a tool to characterize and reconstruct the transformations of the entire agri-food model. At the same time, it provides an epistemology that discusses a certain Argentine “peasant fiction”, by placing the subjects that produce food in a leading role in social history.