Biopolitics of Nutrition and Resistance in Peru and Colombia: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract (English)

This paper explores the relationship between population and state through the lens of nutritional interventions in two contrasting Latin American settings—rural Ayacucho, Peru, and peri-urban communities in Medellín, Colombia. Drawing on Foucault's concept of biopolitics and ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2020-2023, we examine how state power manifests through both intensive surveillance ("making live") and systematic neglect ("letting die").
In Ayacucho, we analyze how anemia-reduction programs exemplify disciplinary biopolitics through aggressive state intervention, with local promoters pressuring mothers to comply with supplementation regimes—even threatening access to water or employment for non-compliance. This approach frames malnutrition as an individual maternal failure rather than a structural issue, while reinforcing traditional gender roles where mothers bear sole responsibility for children's health outcomes.
In contrast, Medellín's informal settlements represent biopolitics through neglect, where state absence is punctuated only by insufficient humanitarian aid and temporary programs that fail to address chronic food insecurity. Here, community resistance has emerged through collective organization, urban gardens, and food solidarity networks primarily led by women.
Both cases reveal how nutritional interventions become sites of contestation. Women exercise agency through strategic engagement, selective compliance, and alternative food practices that challenge state narratives. In Peru, mothers resist humiliating surveillance by developing alternative feeding practices and asserting their knowledge. In Colombia, community members create food sovereignty initiatives when abandoned by the state.
This comparative study contributes to anthropological understandings of how biopolitical frameworks produce differentiated experiences of citizenship through food and nutrition, while highlighting how marginalized communities—particularly women—construct alternative visions of wellbeing that simultaneously engage with and resist state power across the care-neglect continuum.

Resumen (Español)

This paper explores the relationship between population and state through the lens of nutritional interventions in two contrasting Latin American settings—rural Ayacucho, Peru, and peri-urban communities in Medellín, Colombia. Drawing on Foucault's concept of biopolitics and ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2020-2023, we examine how state power manifests through both intensive surveillance ("making live") and systematic neglect ("letting die").
In Ayacucho, we analyze how anemia-reduction programs exemplify disciplinary biopolitics through aggressive state intervention, with local promoters pressuring mothers to comply with supplementation regimes—even threatening access to water or employment for non-compliance. This approach frames malnutrition as an individual maternal failure rather than a structural issue, while reinforcing traditional gender roles where mothers bear sole responsibility for children's health outcomes.
In contrast, Medellín's informal settlements represent biopolitics through neglect, where state absence is punctuated only by insufficient humanitarian aid and temporary programs that fail to address chronic food insecurity. Here, community resistance has emerged through collective organization, urban gardens, and food solidarity networks primarily led by women.
Both cases reveal how nutritional interventions become sites of contestation. Women exercise agency through strategic engagement, selective compliance, and alternative food practices that challenge state narratives. In Peru, mothers resist humiliating surveillance by developing alternative feeding practices and asserting their knowledge. In Colombia, community members create food sovereignty initiatives when abandoned by the state.
This comparative study contributes to anthropological understandings of how biopolitical frameworks produce differentiated experiences of citizenship through food and nutrition, while highlighting how marginalized communities—particularly women—construct alternative visions of wellbeing that simultaneously engage with and resist state power across the care-neglect continuum.