2014/2015 Janey Annual Workshop: Gema Santamaria and Luis Tsukayama
Thursday April 16th, 10am, History Conference Room 529
Janey Fellows Gema Santamaria and Luis Tsukayama present their most recent work based on the 2014/2015 Janey Fellowship they were awarded. See titles of their presentations and abstracts below:
Luis Tsukayama
Aesthetics and imagination in the paradoxical construction of civility and “middle class” in Lima through Peruvian food
In the last 10 years, Peruvian food and the social practices surrounding it have acquired new meanings that put it at the center of national pride and new understandings of what it means to be Peruvian. These new meanings are reflected in people’s everyday conversations, media (e.g. an increased abundance and popularity of television programs dedicated to finding best unknown restaurants, documentaries about the history of Peruvian food, cooking shows and competitions, etc.), and populist politics (e.g. the institution of the national day of Pisco Sour and “pollo a la brasa”, recurrent remarks in the press acknowledging the legitimacy of Peru’s best known chef as a potential presidential candidate, etc.). In Peru’s biggest city, Lima , culture and cuisine reflect the diversity of its population rooted in years of internal and external immigration processes since the times of the Spanish colony. In this paper I argue that the “aesthetization” of food in Peru –a focus on aesthetics rather than just on flavor—was, in great part, pivotal to the transformation of its social meanings in the mid-2000s. An unintended consequence of this focus on aesthetics was that the new “novo Andean” cuisine became a central element of an invigorated Peruvian pride. At the same time, paradoxically, it made aesthetics play an essential role in enacting social boundaries amongst Limeños through the everyday practice of eating. In other words, pride in Peruvian food allowed for emergence of new spaces of social “civility” based on weak links in a society that historically has been strongly divided by class, socioeconomic status, race, etc. But food also perpetuates forms of distinction and boundary-making that discourage democratic practices. The paper begins to explore the links between “aesthetics” and the “imagination” (Arendt 1972, Castoriadis 1994, Botticci 2011) that is central in what I argue is the constitution of a new Limeño “middle class”. This new middle class is based primarily on civility that emerged in the intersection of different publics in Limeño society, and not on democratic practices.
Gema Santamaria
De-centering Violence: Lynchings and State Formation in Post-Revolutionary Puebla
With an emphasis on the 1930s-1970s period and based on the regional history of Puebla, this essay seeks to understand the impact of Mexico’s post-revolutionary process of state formation on the persistency of lynchings, a collective, illegal, and often ritualized form of violence. Applying Jeffrey Rubin’s (1996) de-centered understanding of the makings of hegemony in post-revolutionary Mexico, the argument of the essay is two-fold. First I argue that, despite the post-revolutionary state’s efforts to gain the hearts and minds of local communities, the presence of the state remained fragmented and contested in regards to its legitimacy to mediate conflicts and exert social control within given communities. Lynchings can thus be read as part of the discontents and divisions produced by the post-revolutionary project. Secondly, I will argue that the ongoing occurrence of lynchings needs to be read in tandem with other private, decentralized, and illegal forms of violence enabled by public officials and political elites throughout the twentieth century. These expressions of violence, which include the actions of pistoleros, bandits, private militias, self-defense forces, as well as of police and military personnel motivated by private or political interests, resulted in a citizen ethos that regarded law as uneven, partial, and therefore subject to being negotiated, altered, and privately appropriated. This de-centered exercise of violence, which can be traced back to the revolution and became part of the institutional fabric of the state of Puebla under Maximino Ávila Camacho, contributed to establish lynchings as a legitimate means to resolve conflicts and to respond to alleged threats at the local level.