This is a reflection about how “caring for a dish is caring for the river.” The viudo de pescado (the widower of fish) is an emblematic dish that is part of the fishing and riverside traditions along the río Magdalena in Colombia, South America. The ingredients used to cook the dish, the locations where it is eaten, and the steps taken to protect this tradition illustrate the enormous complexities of environmental justice as seen through the lenses of rural communities.1 Environmental justice, understood as the meeting point between environmentalism and social justice, calls for the fair treatment and meaningful participation in environmental management of all people, regardless, for example, of ethnicity, nationality, income, or gender. It also entails understanding notions of co-responsibility at the local, regional, and global levels: whose actions will be taken into account in order to understand and reverse pollution, to mitigate and better adapt to...
“El Viudo De Pescado”: Living Waters, Living Food
Diana Bocarejo’s research weaves together political and legal anthropology with the socioenvironmental. She analyzes everyday practices and local forms of environmental care as crucial forms of water governance. Her work is shaped in interdisciplinary teams with biologists, lawyers, engineers, and artists; her main contribution focuses on analyzing the quests to promote “living waters” by fishermen along the Río Magdalena in Colombia.
Rafael Díaz works with mediums and techniques that question the problems of representation, appropriation, and interpretation of images, the passage of time, and value in the artistic exercise. He spends his time teaching, drawing, and running experimental exhibitions in Bogotá.
Diana Bocarejo, Rafael Diaz; “El Viudo De Pescado”: Living Waters, Living Food. Gastronomica 1 February 2022; 22 (1): 81–84. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2022.22.1.81
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