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Anyone who has ever spent any substantial amount of time in the Grand Canyon state is not surprised to hear Arizona described in the national media as an epicenter of social conflict. For as long as historians and pundits have been trying to describe it, this region has always been a complex web of contradictions, desires, and contested meanings. But must our understanding of this place remained confined to a simplistic binary of natural beauty versus social ugliness? In this talk, anthropologist and folklorist Maribel Alvarez lays out the approach to place-making and grassroots democracy. Taking into account recent developments in climate change and global food prices, questions of food security, local knowledge, and sustainability cannot longer be confined to the choices made by select, upper-class, health-conscious consumers. By taking us on a tour of a supermarket chain conceived specifically to serve the alimentary habits of the states' working class ethnic communities, she reveals how hidden among the crevices of a political climate bent on shame and disavowal, we may find hints of a different Arizona in the making ---one in which the resiliency, humor, and inventiveness of Arizona's working folk suggest an alternative script for the nation's future.

 

  

Maribel Alvarez is Associate Research Professor at The Southwest Center and the English Department. She is a Trustee of the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center and serves as a the leading folklorist and Chair of the Board for the local folklife festival "Tucson Meet Yourself." In 2009 she was a Fulbright Fellow in Sonora, Mexico researching the cultural history of wheat in Northern Mexico. She is co-founder with Gary Nabhan of Sabores Sin Fronteras, a binational foodways alliance of ranchers, farmers, cooks, and food advocates. Maribel is a nationally recognized leader in the arts and culture field who has worked for more than 25 years with leading artists, national foundations, and cultural critics. She holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Arizona and has published about artistic practices in the US-Mexico border; artisans, patrimony, and visual culture; poetry, food, and intangible heritage. In 2007, the Community Arts Network named her one of the leading "bridge" thinkers in the country, working across disciplines to forge new genres of public scholarship.