Paqueteros and Paqueteras: Humanizing a Dehumanized Food System

Published: Jan. 31, 2021, 9:01 p.m.

b'This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies , guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Jaclyn Rohel. Alyshia G\\xe1lvez explores the work of transnational food couriers known as paqueteros and paqueteras. These informal grassroots entrepreneurs connect people and places across international borders through the delivery of goods, care packages, and specialty and traditional foods. Drawing on ethnographic research of micro-local foodways in Mexico (Puebla) and the United States (New York) and the connections between them, G\\xe1lvez discusses how informal food couriers humanize an increasingly industrialized food system in the post-NAFTA landscape.\\n\\nPlease note that around the 10-min mark, Professor G\\xe1lvez mentions having been asked by federal attorneys to serve as an expert witness, while she meant to say that she had been approached by public defenders in that capacity.'