Resumen

PASQUIER MERINO, Ayari G.. Food safety from an ethnographic perspective. The case of a community of Guatemalan refugees in Chiapas, Mexico. Cultura representaciones soc [online]. 2017, vol.11, n.22, pp.131-157. ISSN 2007-8110.

Based on the rights and capabilities approach proposed by Sen and Drèze (1989), this text presents an ethnographic analysis on food security of a group of Guatemalan refugee families living in extreme poverty in a rural community in the South border region of the state of Chiapas. In this context, we look at the vulnerability factors that the families face in order to achieve stable availability, access and use of food over time and their capability to respond to different types of crises that affect their food security. At the same time, the text focuses on the inequalities between families in order to show the diversity of situations and strategies within a group frequently tagged under the label of “extreme poverty”. Based on this study, we present some considerations of limits faced by policies on poverty reduction. We conclude that, in this context, food vulnerability is imposed by conditions of socioeconomic exclusion, especially in the dimensions of access and use of food. The lack of social security services is another factor that compromises the food security of families in the case of unforeseen events, especially for families that cannot use social solidarity networks.

Palabras llave : food security; rural communities.

        · resumen en Español     · texto en Español     · Español ( pdf )