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Ernesto Di Renzo, Paola Stefanutti

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Subject. The study of markets focuses simultaneously on food, people, cultures and, above all, places. Places provide the setting for daily urban practices, which explain and interpret the territories and social components that bring them to life. The aim of this research is to study the social, cultural and gender dynamics, as well as the complex meanings that these physical and food spaces take on as a result of daily experience and the negotiation of identity-based relations. 

Methods. This article is part of the field research conducted between 2016 and 2019 to study daily food practices learnt from the experience of popular markets on the triple border between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, which lies between the respective municipalities of Foz do Iguaçu, Ciudad del Este and Puerto Iguazú. The research, which was theoretically supported by a historical anthropological approach, focused on defining how social actors operated and how physical and symbolic spaces – linked to the food experience of trading and processing agricultural produce into gastronomic recipes – were managed.

Results. One of the most controversial aspects of the research relates to the gender issues at the market in Ciudad del Este. Around 400 vendors work there, offering exclusively a variety of food from family farms. Ninety percent of these vendors are women. However, although these vendors are responsible for trading, the decision-making power is firmly held by men. Indeed, the commission in charge of controlling the market is composed of nineteen men and only one women. The commission is responsible for managing the spatial logistics, enforcing the rules for selling and imposing sanctions in the event of a breach. In practice, in the Paraguayan market, although there is a strict division of labour based on gender, power is entirely in the hands of men. Yet, the fact that women are responsible for the majority of work activities, gives them a useful economic role and social leadership status within the groups they belong to.