Hybridities and awkward constructions in Philippine locavorism: Reframing global-local dynamics through assemblage thinking

College

College of Liberal Arts

Department/Unit

Political Science

Document Type

Article

Source Title

Food, Culture and Society

Volume

23

Issue

2

First Page

117

Last Page

136

Publication Date

3-14-2020

Abstract

In the last six years, there has been an emergence of food retail establishments that claim to advocate and practice locavorism in Manila, capital of the Philippines. Based on three years of field research and new media analysis, we observed that the Manila adaptation of locavorism has striking similarities to and notable differences from its Western cognates, manifesting as complex amalgamations of local-global discourses and materialities. We examine this articulation as an “assemblage” that manifests as hybridities, a product of the combination of Filipino and Western discursive elements and material practices, and as “awkward constructions”, a combination of disengaged consumers, haphazard combinations of local and imported ingredients, and exclusionary consumer spaces. In this distinctive formation, culinary bricoleurs–restaurant owners and chefs–“make do”, rearrange and experiment with a variety of discursive and material components available from the local and the global to create a largely fragmented and messy local food enterprise. We attribute the contingence of this assemblage to the colonial history and post-colonial conditions of the Philippines, where associated power dynamics have shaped locavorism subjects as they negotiate the continued influence of Western culinary culture and navigate the competitive world of food business. © 2020, © 2020 Association for the Study of Food and Society.

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Digitial Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1080/15528014.2020.1713428

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences | South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies

Keywords

Cooking, Philippine; Local foods--Philippines; Food habits--Philippines; Flavor

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