MEXICO
Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, is the largest city in the Western hemisphere, a bustling megacity with a population exceeding 21 million people. The city serves as the political, economic, and cultural heart of the country, boasting a rich history and diverse urban landscape. However, like many major metropolises, it faces ongoing challenges, including traffic congestion, air pollution, and issues related to social inequality.
In addition to its large size, the city also has a unique food system. Aside from North American supermarket franchises, the city’s diverse food system also includes a various historical food markets where traditional foods are sold alongside modern food choices. These local markets can include both formal and informal food retailers. In conjunction with these large food markets, the city also hosts informal food retailers, including street vendors and markets on wheels. Together, this system of food retailers demonstrates the distinctive food system supporting Mexico City.
RESEARCH on MEXICO
MiFOOD PAPERS
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Heterogeneity Among Merchants in Mexico City’s Municipal Markets
In the last decade and after nearly half a century of neglect, Mexico City’s public markets have once again made their appearance on the urban agenda, both in terms of policy and academic studies. This article, drawn on ethnographic fieldwork with merchants in three public markets, contributes to the burgeoning discussion on markets in two ways: 1) it provides a description of the heterogeneity of merchants and vendors in the markets; 2) on the basis of this description, it proposes ...
Insecure Infrastructures: The Affects and Effects of Violence in Mexico’s Food System
This article puts into dialogue anthropological discussions on violence, infrastructures, food systems, and affect to argue for the importance of understanding the role of affective responses in shaping not only subjectivities or experiences of individuals but also the networks, infrastructures, and institutions in which they participate. Set in contemporary Mexico, where concern about criminal violence has become increasingly widespread, the article analyzes ethnographically how different actors in Mexico City's wholesale food market narrate and respond to contexts of violence. It ...
Les supermarchés au Mexique et dans la Zone Métropolitaine de Mexico
The article analyses the logics of expansion and spatial distribution of supermarkets at three scales: global, national (Mexico), and especially metropolitan (Mexico City), from rich to poor spaces and social categories. It seeks to understand how supermarkets, in a country like Mexico where they initially target mainly the middle class, reproduce or mitigate socio-spatial disparities. We conclude that they are a factor both of mitigation (due to a relatively good distribution in the metropolitan space) and of reproduction of inequalities ...
The Household Food Security Implications of Disrupted Access to Basic Services in Five Cities in the Global South
COVID-19 has caused significant disruptions regarding the extent to which households can access basic services and resources in cities around the world. Previous studies have indicated a predictive relationship between the consistency of resource access and food access among urban households. These investigations, however, have predominantly been isolated to Southern Africa and have not accounted for other dimensions of food security. To test whether these results are observable outside Southern Africa, and with a more multidimensional measure of food security, ...
Street Food as Infrastructure: Consumer Mobility and Food Security in Mexico City
Street food vendors are a ubiquitous but controversial feature of Mexico City’s foodscapes; in the context of urban renewal and modernization projects, vendors are frequently portrayed as backwards, dirty, and undesirable and are targeted for removal. While most studies of such processes focus on the implications for vendors themselves, this article asks about the implications of street vendor removal and removability for those who consume these foods on a regular basis. The article adopts a mobilities framework in order to ...
RESEARCH PROJECTS
QES-AS Program: Governing Urban Food Systems in the Global South
The Hungry Cities Partnership has received a four-year (2017-2021) grant from the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships advanced scholars program to fund the exchange of doctoral, post-doctoral and early career scholars between Canada and partner cities. Learn More (PDF)
IPaSS: Informality, Inclusive Growth and Food Security in Cities of the Global South
This foundation project of the Hungry Cities Partnership is funded by the SSHRC and IDRC under the International Partnerships for Sustainable Societies Program (IPaSS). The project has facilitated the formation of an initial seven-city research and policy network across the Global South linked to researchers at five Canadian universities. The project has embarked on a five-year program of collaborative research on a variety of themes related to inclusive growth and the formal and informal urban food system in the study ...
Women Feeding Cities Project: Gender-Transformative, Resilient, and Sustainable Covid-19 Recovery of the Informal Food Sector in Secondary Cities
This project funded by IDRC will ‘scale-down’ our NFRF-funded Women Feeding Cities Project by focusing on these gaps in secondary cities of less than 500,000 in partner countries. Using a gender-responsive lens, we will investigate the multiple ways in which the Covid-19 crisis has disrupted the livelihoods of women in the informal food economy and the challenges and prospects for sustainable pandemic recovery in four secondary cities in partner countries: Xai Xai (Mozambique), Montego Bay (Jamaica), Oshakati (Namibia), and Tapachula ...
Women Feeding Cities Project: Building a Gender-Transformative, Resilient, and Sustainable Informal Food Sector for COVID-19 Recovery
This Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) comparative international project is funded by NFRF. It will examine the food security impacts of COVID-19 on micro-enterprises owned by women in the informal urban food sector, their households and communities in four HCP cities: Maputo, Windhoek, Kingston (Jamaica) and Mexico City. It has four main objectives: (a) compare the impact of the pandemic and public health policies on women in the informal food sector in Africa and LAC; (b) examine the responses and strategies ...
Food Security of International Migrants in Mexico City
The project aims to analyze the precarity, exclusion and food insecurity of international migrants in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City (ZMVM). Particular attention will be given to gender inequalities and the situation of female migrants. It will also focus on another key vulnerable population– children and adolescents who travel alone or accompanied.
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