Embodied tastes: food and agrobiodiversity in the Colombian Andes

Through an examination of food production, perception and consumption, this dissertation explores how Colombian Andean peasants use and conserve agrobiodiversity for their diets, and the social implications of their food practices and tastes. It interrogates normalized assumptions about the simplicity and monotony of the peasant diet. Premised on the assumption that food has the ability to tie the private and mundane with larger socioeconomic and cultural processes, this dissertation explores aspects of the evolution of the Andean diet in regards to agricultural modernization, food and nutrition policies, and social discourses on peasant foods in Colombia. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and a mixed-methods approach, this dissertation examines dislocations, contradictions, and paradoxes between peasant cultural and embodied relationship to food and the dis-embodying effects of food and nutrition policies and market forces. The importance of peasant foods and food practices to cultural and alimentary diversity in Colombia is underscored.