Traditional Andean Food, Tourism and Place: Defining the New Geography of the Quebrada de Humahuaca (Argentina)

ARZENO, MARIANA Y TRONCOSO, CLAUDIA

Nueva York

Encuentro; 2012 Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting; 2012

Association of American Geographers

In recent years we have witnessed a growing interest in the consumption of distinctive food products associated to particular geographical and cultural origins. This represents an interesting topic from a geographical perspective since the current process of defining places based on food consumption practices (either by resident or tourists) are associated to the recovery of cultural and "geographical" differences. This article examines the valorization process of place´s specificities involved in the production and consumption of typical Andean products and preparations. The research focuses on a specific place: Quebrada de Humahuaca, Northwestern Argentina, a peasant farming area where pre-Hispanic techniques and products are still present. The analysis performed includes the material and symbolic aspects of this transformation process and the multiple actors involved in them. In order to do this, we analyzed empirical secondary data (statistical information, official tourism brochures, etc.) and we also used primary data from qualitative interviews with producers, technicians, tourism entrepreneurs, tourists, and experts involved in public policy design. The article shows that the processes under analysis re-signify this place both at a national and global scale. They also make it "competitive" through economic and socio-cultural valorization of some of its attributes. These were the purposes of the public policy designed as an instrument of rural development. Nonetheless, the paper concludes that despite the intention to encourage the production of traditional Andean food as a way of raising incomes, this strategy does not translate into the improvement of local people´s living conditions as intended by public policy.