Recovering care networks through food sovereignty: A case study in Wayúu Communities, Colombia

De Fex Wolf, Daniela 2023. Recovering care networks through food sovereignty: A case study in Wayúu Communities, Colombia. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis analyses the importance of care in a humanitarian crisis context in La Guajira (Colombia) which disproportionately affects the Wayúu indigenous community and explores how this community recovers its care networks. I start from the premise that the humanitarian crisis faced by the Wayúus is a care crisis. I argue that it is critical to identify the causes for the loss of care networks and practices and the crisis responses from this community and humanitarian assistance institutions. For this, I use three academic fields: the ethics of care, (feminist) political ecology and food sovereignty. I take the quotidian and the Wayúu food systems and food sovereignty as the place for analysing care networks and practice transformations, arguing that food and the body are the first dimensions to reflect environmental and socio-political changes. This research results from ethnographic work in Wayúu communities in three cities of La Guajira. I explore care transformations (loss and recovery) guided by the Wayúu experiences and stories, tracing how the community's food systems have been shaped in response to territorial and social shifts and identifying the sources of these changes. I do this exploration through three empirical chapters. In the first one, I discuss La Guajira's large-scale extractivism activities' impact on Wayúu's care network transformation. A second chapter focuses on the crisis, discussing the role of humanitarian institutions, their crisis management approach, and how it leads to bad care policies. In the last empirical chapter, I focus on the Wayúu community's response to the crisis, emphasising that the community has not remained immobile. Instead, they deploy a series of practices and actions that celebrate and position care at the centre of decisions and systems. Interestingly, and what constitutes the main contribution of this thesis, the Wayúu communities are using food sovereignty arguments and practices to recover care networks, showing how care and food sovereignty are co-created and co-dependent and highlighting the every day as a place where transformative proposals and actions can emerge in a powerful way.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	• Food sovereignty • Ethics of care • Political ecology • Food crisis • Care • Wayúu people • Colombia
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 May 2023
Last Modified:	05 May 2024 01:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/159235

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