We Are Kneading Another World. Alternative Food Practices and Futures in Mexico City

The nutrition transition and neoliberal policies that Mexico has seen over the last three decades have driven the country to (among other things) a sovereignty and food autonomy crisis on the one hand and an epidemic of obesity and illnesses connected to malnutrition on the other.

This process of disabling food knowledge is impossible to achieve except as the integrated effect of food disinformation and both, in turn, are framed by disorganization and disconnection regarding specific decisions to do with antroponomic production at all scales. As a social response to this widespread loss of nutrition knowledge, Mexico has seen the formation of different social movements for food sovereignty.

In Mexico City, in particular, recent years have seen these classic collective action experiences joined by others characterized by attention not only on food production but on how they are distributed and consumed, thereby redefining an alternative lifestyle marked by the recovery and/or enhancement of pre-Hispanic production traditions – milpa – distribution traditions – tanguis – food consumption – and the recovery of quelites. The alternative lifestyle is also marked by a series of innovative social practices such as vegetarianism/veganism, the recovery of ties to nature in the city, sustainable habitation, solidary economic models, community participation and organization, development of appropriate technology, the emergence of a collective resilient culture.

In this presentation we will analyze some experiences in Mexico City and see how their alternative food practice and network experiences are shaping values, visions, projects, and strategies, and help transform one of the biggest cities in the world and open it to alternative futures.