Feeding Identity: an Exploration of Food, Race and Territoriality in Coquí, Chocó, Colombia = Alimentando la identidad: una exploración a la alimentación, raza y territorialidad en Coquí, Chocó, Colombia

In this dissertation I examine the ways in which the community of Coquí, Colombia negotiate their identity. I argue that local forms of representation are re-created in forms of daily life activities such as farming, fishing and cooking. At the same time, those negotiations are connected to structures such as the black and indigenous territorial autonomy, the National Development Plan of Colombia (PND), and the presence of structural violence and narco-traffic. I focus on the use of local discourses as a mechanism to explain the territorial tensions with modernity, race, food, political agency and autonomy. I conclude by suggesting that the local territorial autonomy has permitted the consolidation of local food activism, unique ontological relations with nature, perspectives of black political activism, race and, sustainable economies that dialogue in particular ways with the current global capitalist model.