Maynooth University Department of Anthropology

'Consuming Cities. On the social and political meaning of food and consumption in the urban contexts of Quito/Ecuador'

Dr Maria Dabringer
University of Vienna
 

Consuming is usually treated as a component of economic performance. This contribution proposes a broader understanding of consumption, allowing the consideration of additional socio-cultural dimensions. By using the example of Quito – the Andean capital of Ecuador – cities will be discussed as strategic nodes of globalised consumption processes with their local impacts. Here, effects of globalisation and postfordist dynamics become visible: Migration processes, high availability of commodities and a high differentiated food system that satisfies (basic) needs of different pressure groups cause cities to be of interest to social scientists, especially food anthropologists. Consumption patterns of different ethnic, social, religious and other groups and their valuation within urban societies show the complexity of different life-styles in the urban contexts of the Andes.
Based on ethnographic data about an urban women‘s food initiative (collected in Quito while several socialscientific research periods between 1999 and 2012), the contribution wants to highlight a multidimesional view of consumption which should provide an understanding that is not reduced to the economy, but allows for socio-cultural significance, political relevance and individual variability.
 
 
 
Maria Dabringer, *1971, Mag. Dr., social and cultural anthropologist; since 2005 lecturer at the University of Vienna/ Austria, Universidad Complutense Madrid/ Spain, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona /Spain and Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Quito/Ecuador; interests, research areas and publications in the context of urban anthropology, anthropology of food, consumption and material culture, socioscientific methodologies and didactics, development studies, feminist studies; regional focus on Latin America (Ecuador and the Andean Region). Scientific staff representative of the University of Vienna.
Contact: maria.dabringer@univie.ac.at | www.mariadabringer.at