"White food, Indian food": food consumption, agency and identity among urbanized indigenous women in the Upper Rio Negro

Abstract

The question of indigenous people living in the city gradually change from a field barely explored by ethnology of indigenous in Brazil to assume à relevant place in the research agenda. Gradually we see the abandon of the approach that concentrated attention in the individuals” particular experiences face the transformations carried out by urban environment, to another one focused in the analyses of the collective, avoiding the isolation of the individuals” particular experiences and looking for some aspects where these particular experiences can be seen as a network of relations, putting life in the cities as portion of a space in transformation within diverse cultural boundaries. This article aim to discuss these transformations in the perspective indigenous women, having as central point the problem of alimentary choice in a town located in the northwest of Amazonia, São Gabriel da Cachoeira. The meaning of agency is taken as object of ethnographic experiment to help to comprehend the semiotic classifications of food.