Gastropolitics and the Specter of Race

"In recent years, Peru has experienced a transformation from a war-torn country to a global high-end culinary destination. Connecting chefs, state agencies, global capital, and Indigenous producers, this "gastronomic revolution" makes powerful claims: food unites Peruvians, dissolves racial antagonisms, and fuels development. Gastropolitics and the Specter of Race critically evaluates these claims and tracks the emergence of Peruvian gastropolitics, understood as a biopolitical and aesthetic set of practices that reinscribe dominant racial and gendered orders. Through ethnographic analysis and critical readings of high-end menus, culinary festivals, guinea pig production, national-branding campaigns, and other elements of Peru's gastropolitical complex, this work explores the intersections of race, species, and capital to reveal links between gastronomy and violence"--