How to do chicha in Cordoba? Reflections on the political and material aspects of the production of chicha by Bolivian immigrants

Abstract

Beverages and food might be considered as instances with a special daily routine, and with a poetic and a special gastro-politic, which implicates in the everyday reproduction and in the sense of membership in a group. In these instances different subjects and materialities convergence, which articulates in a process in which themselves are defined. From this perspective, it interests us to reflect around the «chicha» (a fermented beverage based on maize) production processes from the view of the Bolivian women immigrants and it articulation with other contexts in the city of Córdoba (Argentina). We consider that it exists a tension between the necessity to count with this beverage for certain celebrations and the difficulty to produce it, and the tension which are inscribed in the marginal situations that experience the majority of the immigrants. To approximate the gastro-politics that unfolds in these production processes, we concentrate on the trajectories of the «chichera» women, as the source materials and other necessities for its elaboration.