2004 Annual Meeting - Abstract

We Are Still Family:
The Sociocultural and Economic Significance of Food Remittances

Silvia Grigolini, grigolin@brandeis.edu, Anthropology Department MS 006, Brandeis University, P.O. Box 549110, Waltham, MA 02454-9110 USA

Migrants’ transfers of cash and goods from host to home communities have been given a great deal of attention in the social sciences. However, remittance transfers that travel in the opposite direction - from the migrants’ relatives in the home community to the migrants themselves in the host community – have been mostly ignored. Remittances received by migrants are normally of much smaller monetary value than those sent by migrants, as they most commonly involve food items rather than cash and expensive consumer goods. Nonetheless, I argue that these transfers of food can have great sociocultural and economic significance for both the senders and the recipients. I illustrate this using data gathered in a small village in the valley of Oaxaca and among its migrants currently residing in California.

In the village, migrants often send remittances home to their families at least in part to retain social ties with them and maintain their membership in a village household and in the village as a whole. The counter transfers of food represent a way of assuring the migrants that their attempts have been successful. On the other hand, a decrease in such transfers of food (in quantity, frequency, or at times even quality), or its total absence, typically indicate to the migrants that their ties with the village are deteriorating, and this necessitates quick action on their part. Migrants often directly request these transfers in order to test their social ties, and villagers in the home community at times make food transfers to encourage greater connection on the part of the migrants. In some cases, they even start sending food items to distantly related relatives (who would not normally receive such donations from them) in an attempt to establish closer social ties with them. Thus, these transfers of food can help villagers expand their social networks with all the benefits that might derive from it (e.g., help migrating, financial aid in case of emergencies, etc.).

Furthermore, at times, women send food items to their migrant husbands in order to meet their domestic duties, even from a distance, and regain their identities as wives and nurturers, which have been compromised by migration. Villagers often perceive young brides who have been left in the village by their husbands before the birth of any children as having gained their lives as single women back in some ways. These women’s domestic duties are limited by the absence of the household members that should be under their care the most. Even if these women are living with their in-laws and assigned considerable domestic tasks in their household, they are still failing to perform their most important duties as wives. This, they often fear, might cause them to lose their identity, and most importantly, part of their influence on their husbands and their rights as married women. Sending frequent packages of food, together with other types of long-distance nurturing, can help these women ease their fears and reclaim both the social and the economic rights they gained at marriage.

In conclusion, I argue that food transfers made to migrants by their relatives back in the home community have greater economic significance than it can be inferred by simply calculating their monetary value. They can be used by the senders in a variety of ways to manipulate or reemphasize their social ties with and social position in relation to migrants, obtaining both economic and social benefits.