Incorporating relations

anthropological approaches between food and risk

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to approach the relationship between food and risk, based on the premise that food carries with it, in addition to its symbolism, materialities that are incorporated, literally, through the act of ingestion. In addition to the ambition to contribute to a theoretical revision on the subject of food in Anthropology, I intend to offer a methodological approach on food that goes beyond its definition as language, or as social mediator, understanding it as an object that enacts reality. The way we define food would define not only the materiality of those who incorporate it, but the very relationships it establishes with the world. The risk would be, thus, the frame by which we can understand how an object is defined as food, in a context that is often conceived as the antithesis of culture: the context of extreme poverty. In order to achieve this goal, I will articulate the most current discussion about “farinata", a project of the former Mayor of São Paulo, João Doria Júnior, in relation to ethnographic scenes resulted from my field research in 2013, in the city of São Paulo.