Kitchen Life in Guatemala

Abstract

In this thesis, food is looked at through the lens of gender. The practice of gender through cooking and eating and thus the embodiment of symbolical values about masculinity and femininity, gender relations and the sexual division of domestic labor form the focus of my research. My thesis is aimed at the everyday preparation and consumption of food of which the activities of cooking and eating happen on a household level on a daily basis. The accent in my thesis will be put on how these practices are gendered, including how these processes surrounding food can be related to the sexual division of domestic labor. The context in which this thesis takes place and took place in the form of fieldwork, is a rural village in Guatemala, San Juan la Laguna, where I lived and worked for two months.