Doctoral Dissertation Research: Food and the Production of Social Distinctions in Lima, Peru

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

New York University doctoral student Amy Lasater-Wille, supervised by Dr. Thomas Abercrombie, will investigate the effects of planned and targeted cultural change projects on socioeconomic hierarchies and ideas of racial difference. The research will be carried out in Lima, Peru, which has long been marked by socioeconomic differentiations predicated on ideas of racial and bodily difference. Peru is an appropriate research site because in the wake of a recent spike in rural-to-urban migration and ongoing national recovery from internal violence (1980-1992), coalitions of development, corporate, and government programs in Peru are explicitly creating new cultural and economic ties between groups once kept separate. The research examines how the practices and goals of these new institutions affect older ideas of social and economic differentiation and stratification. To investigate these issues, the researcher will focus on changes in the area of national cuisine, which has been a site of development interventions. Research will be conducted through an ethnographic study of three locales: a culinary school for working-class youth on the outskirts of Lima; a network of professionals involved in the Peruvian Gastronomy Society; and new public, culinary festivals. Research methods will include participant observation, life history interviews, social network analysis, and the collection and examination of periodicals and texts related to Peru's cuisine and culinary industries. Findings from this research will contribute to social science understandings of the relationship between macroeconomic change, everyday practices, and persistence of or changes in systems of social distinction. This research is also important because it investigates the social impact of economic development and public health projects that focus on cuisine as a target for intervention. Funding for this research also supports the training of a social scientist.