12/12/2023 - Food, cultural heritage and nationhood in Latin America: Venezuelan heritage breads

WHEN: Tuesday 12 December 2023, 16:30–18:00

WHERE: MUP Prague-Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10, Room 305

Good to eat, good to think? Claude Lévi-Strauss‘ famous phrase reminds us about how food choices are closely linked to identity. The lecture explores food as part of the identity performance of individuals in society, and as a political tool entwined with ethnicity, nationalism and heritage politics. To explore these issues, we have taken bread in Venezuela as a main case study. Using the Venezuelan case and comparing it with other regional (particularly Peru and Mexico), I will explore how the choice of heritage food lies in the history of its consumption and its intersection with contemporary political needs. Why have Latin American countries championed edible heritage? How does the heritagization process showcase larger overarching interests?

Eloisa Ocando Thomas is a historical anthropologist with an interest in consumption, food history and economic exchange in colonial Latin America. She has a joint MA degree from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France) and Eotvos Lorand University (Hungary); and graduate of the School of Anthropology of the Universidad Central de Venezuela (2019). She is the author of ‚Las pulperías en la Caracas del siglo XVIII‘ (2020), winner of the 2019-2020 Rafael María Baralt History Prize. Currently, Eloisa is a PhD student at the history department of the University of Warwick, under the supervision of Prof. Rebecca Earle (History).

The lecture is followed by a discussion moderated by Dr. Kateřina Březinová, the Head of Iberoamerican Centre of the MUP.