Foodscapes, Foodfields, and Identities in the YucatÁn. Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz
its different forms as the product of bounded cultures. Other anthropologists have also contributed to the relativization of ‘identity' and ‘person' (see, among others, Strathern 1991; Wagner 1991). Although it is a problematic term, social actors frequently use ‘identity' and identity-related concepts to define themselves, their social forms, and their cultural productions (as well as those of others with whom they engage). Identity politics imposes on the subjects the dichotomous logic of sameness/otherness. This logic, Lash (1999) has argued, commits difference to the margins. Hence, in contemporary identity rhetoric we find, on the one hand, that even if Mexico and Yucatán are both highly heterogeneous societies that encompass a diversity of cultures and social groups, they are often subsumed under a single identity term (‘Mexico', ‘Mexicans’) that silences cultural, economic, gender, political, religious, and other differences. On the other hand, when differences are recognized, they are reduced to ‘otherness' and are placed in a subordinate position to the identity of the group in power. In actual everyday practice, the boundaries among groups are more imprecise than these categories allow for, and those encompassed by a name, rather than a cohesive and harmonious collectivity, are frequently engaged in performative practices that challenge the legitimacy of homogeneous/hegemonic identities and subtly erode the groups from within (Ayora-Diaz 2003).
Throughout this book, I often make reference to Yucatecan identity as something that individuals purposefully oppose to a national identity, although not necessarily in an instrumental way (many Yucatecans are convinced that a Yucatecan identity ‘truly' exists). I understand identities as socially and culturally constructed attributes or qualities that can have external and/or internal currency in the characterization of any individual or group. As Bhabha (1994) has argued, colonial and colonized groups of people engage in a process of subjectification whereby they appropriate attributes and characteristics to represent themselves, often fixing their own identity into cultural stereotypes. These stereotypes obscure the fact that the chosen identity-defining attributes are dynamic, context-dependent, and constantly changing. My analysis expands the anthropological critical understanding of local identities that began with Evans-Pritchard (1940) and was followed by Barth ([1969] 1998) and Herzfeld (1997), that is, that identities, despite their apparent fixity, need to be understood as situated and as changing according to the relationship of forces among different groups and in the context of their strategies of inclusion and exclusion (Appiah 2006; Bilgrami 2006). In the contemporary stage of cultural globalization, the identity of a person in modern societies has been thought of, and sometimes experienced, as one that has reached a high degree of structural coherence and temporal consistency (Giddens 1990, 1991; Ricoeur 1992).
Since the advent of the post-Fordist mode of production and of postmodern consumption, identities have come to be lived and described as fragmentary, superficial, and fleeting—as simulacra of a ‘self’ embedded in a world of goods, information, and consumption (Gergen 1991; Jameson 1991). The linkage between consumption practices and the fashioning of transient individual and group identities has informed the argument that identities are as fleeting and superficial as the life of commodities in the market. In contrast, ethnic or national identities are understood and lived as being fixed and, at least in part, embedded in the goods that these individuals or groups produce and consume (Halter 2000; Mathews 2000). In the latter case, specific marked commodities anchor the identity of a group of people. From another point of view, group identities are understood as having been forged in the anvil of the market, be that of material goods, religions, or other forms of individual expression (Featherstone 1991; Friedman 1994; Hetherington 1998). From still another perspective, identities have come to be seen as politically imposed, giving grounds to the emergence of different identities and new social movements, including those positing regionalist and nationalist demands (Castells 1997; Escobar and Alvarez 1992; Foweraker 1995; Larraín Ibañez 2001). Despite their differences, I find that, in general, these various theoretical standpoints seem to accept that the affirmation of local identities is imbued with a high degree of instrumentality.
Some authors have described ethnic and nationalist movements either as forms of instrumental identity formation (Esman 1994; Gellner 1983) or as pre-modern political forms that prefigure contemporary political movements (Hobsbawm 1990). Nonetheless, as anthropologists who understand that identities are fashioned and not given essences, we cannot ignore that individuals develop an affective attachment toward other people whom they see as sharing the same or a similar religion, language, skin color, territory, and political and social organization, and that they develop mechanisms to exclude individuals perceived as different from themselves. Privileging this experience, some have focused on what are called primordial attachments, naturalizing and producing understandings of ethnic, regional, and national identities as an essential attribute of a group of people (A. Smith 1983, 1999). I find that these models depend too much on the territoriality of a group to explain the foundation of different national quests. In the current historical moment of decolonization, cultural globalization, economic and military imperialism, post-national disintegration, and post-colonial developments, we can no longer base our understanding on localized cultures. Instead, I argue that we need to look at the processes of cultural exchange (more often, unequal) and the ways in which flows of people affect the societies that they leave behind and those where they arrive (Ayora-Diaz 2007a).
The post-colonial order imposes on individuals the need to produce new forms of subjectivity, which they, in turn, derive from changed social, political, and cultural configurations. As M. Joseph (1999) suggests, displaced groups of people must negotiate and may be granted different degrees of formal rights within the societies that they move into. In this context, both colonizing and colonized groups forge forms of identification that are characterized by blurred boundaries, practices, and values. Hence, individuals are motivated to perform their identity by declaring and demonstrating their attachment to cultural products that root them into a culture, for example, by expressing their love for or attachment to the music, food, and forms of social conviviality that are identified as proper to the people of a territory. The more a foreigner performs as a local, the more likely it is that she or he will be accepted by the host society.22 Hybrid identities and cultural practices are now commonplace terms to describe emerging cultural products and the identity of those who find them meaningful in crafting their selves. This hybridity, as Bhabha (1994) argues, generates forms of ambivalence that can lead to unstable, changing forms of identification, including what he has called ‘colonial mimicry'. In Yucatán I found that the latter often translates into the actions and discourses of Yucatecans who accept unquestionably the authority of central Mexican or other foreign viewpoints and criticize local practices as parochial or ‘uncouth'. The economic, political, and religious institutions linked to the nation-state continuously support central Mexican culture, leading to the local perception that the presence of central Mexicans and the enforcement of their cultural views constitute an act of aggression and place a burden on the local society. The relationship between Yucatecans and outsiders, however, varies according to the groups involved. Immigrants from regions other than the central Mexican highlands have gained greater acceptance, and resentment against them seldom (although not rarely) surfaces.
At the beginning of this twenty-first century, the population of Mérida is undeniably multicultural. Correspondingly, the market for non-local cuisines has also grown over the last three decades. From an unmarked consumption of food, Yucatecans have come to appreciate cuisines (including a variety of Mexican regional cuisines) that could be considered somewhat exotic for local taste. Yucatecan and Mexican cuisines are noticeably different: Yucatecan cuisine has developed by avoiding the blueprint of a national Mexican cuisine, finding greater affinity with European and Caribbean traditions. Yucatecans have grown to perceive themselves as different from the rest of Mexico—socially, culturally, and morally.23 In the performance of identity politics, regional cuisine is understood locally to reflect the values of the Yucatecan population at large, which are, in the same move, affirmed as different from Mexican values (Ayora-Diaz and Vargas Cetina 2005a).
While some differences between regional and national culinary traditions are often explained by environmental and ecological differences, we need to revise this explanation, drawing from the history of the difficult relationship between these regions (described in more detail in chapter 1). In short, there are accounts that suggest that Yucatán developed in