THE BEING AND PREPRESENTATIONS OF FOOD SECURITY: DISSOLUTION OF CONCEPTUAL CERTAINTY/ONTOLOGICAL TURN IN INDIGENOUS-AIMARA COMMUNITIES OF SOUTHERN PERUVIA

Bermejo-Paredes S.; Maquera-Maquera Y.A. · Dialogo Andino (2025) · DOI: 10.4067/s0719-26812025000100060

Resumen

Without indigenous people who still maintain unique ways of life and thought, the consequences of the global food crisis would be unprecedented and catastrophic. This qualitative study aimed to understand the linguistic expressions and unique meanings through which the Aymara indigenous people conceptualized/defined their existence and representations of food security. Through content and linguistic analysis based on the corpus of actual samples of native language use, the findings highlight that for the Indigenous-Aymara, intelligibility, and understanding of food security are assumed as a safeguard, interdependent responsibility of one’s life. Moreover, the others (including food and nature) comprise a single totality/living unit (qalpacha), a single being. Food (manq’aña), because it is a body (janchisa), attends to the care/subsistence (jakaña) of being/existence (jaqikankaña); singularity that would result in the body through food and not the mind, being an essential condition to exist and know the world. The problem of food security, in the face of the apparent differences and disconnects between the indigenous and Western worlds, must be transferred to the conceptual and knowledge sphere before it is reduced to dimensions, social, cultural, and educational intervention programs or sustainable development agendas.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional del Altiplano