Informal gastronomy: food, territory and resistance in the plazoleta of San Victorino, Bogotá Colombia

Abstract

This article analyzes street food and its relationship with the tensions and resistance associated with the dynamics of social inequality derived from labor informality in the Plazoleta de San Victorino in the city of Bogotá. The methodological horizon is oriented from a qualitative approach according to Páramo (2013) and as a method the ethnography of the places was achieved according to Vergara (2013). The information was systematized and analyzed using the qualitative analysis software ATLAS.ti. The findings indicate that the sale of street food fulfills a social function by supplying food to an important sector of the Bogota population, which survives with very limited economic resources, understanding that the informal economy covers a good part of the city's inhabitants. It is concluded that informal gastronomy fulfills a role of social resistance in the context of the urban economy, since in the face of disabilities and abandonment by the state, it emerges as a possibility of employment and relief of food security for the most disadvantaged of the society. Keywords: Street food. Informality. Unemployment. Resistance. Conflicts.