Food beliefs and knowledge as resistance to cultural change among immigrant mothers in Culiacán, Sinaloa

Abstract

Social work as a scientific discipline is concerned with identifying and understanding those social and cultural determinants with respect to health-food, which are part of the identity of immigrant groups in the horticultural region of Culiacán, in order to analyze those social aspects and cultural ones that must be influenced to improve the health of immigrant families who come in search of health-nutritional promotion and education services. Therefore, this article presents the results regarding food beliefs and knowledge in immigrant women mothers, this being part of a broader study on the food culture of women-mothers of families from marginal spaces in Culiacan, Sinaloa, in where food identity is rescued as an essential part of these peoples and considered as cultural elements that must be taken into account in food and nutrition education programs. A study was carried out with a qualitative approach, with the use of microethnography and phenomenology for data collection, with the use of direct participant observation, open, semi-structured interviews and a sociodemographic identity card survey, for characterization of the participating sample.
The most relevant findings of this research are mainly; the existence of beliefs, knowledge possessed by women mothers of immigrant families that they put into practice in their daily life for the health care of themselves and their children. As well as the existence of methodologies for the preparation and preservation of food as effective technologies to maintain food for long periods of time, and finally the use of traditional foods as part of the identity of their places of origin and as part of the resistance to change culture.