Zoque Grandmothers as Agents of Change in Feeding Practices

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of Zoque mothers-grandmothers as central agents in the construction of feeding practices and
the identity of their society. In this way, it contributes to the knowledge of the agency’s capacity to change or perpetuate
certain elements in local food practices. An ethnography of the ablactation period of two infants living in towns with different
geographic locations but assigned to the same zoque group called Carmen Tonapak was carried out. The data were compared
and analyzed from a social anthropology perspective, although other disciplines are considered. It is argued that in both
localities a double food legitimation process is being built: the traditional one in which a space for the integration of the infant
into the zoque group is created, and the kirawua, with which the taste for industrialized foods is subtly stimulated. In addition,
a third repertoire of knowledge about plants or animals of collection and domestication is identified, which are reflexively
excluded from the teaching process to young people and children because they are considered obsolete.