Between Assimilation and Resistance: Everyday Tensions in Food, Body, and Identity Among Colombian Migrant Women in Asturias

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between body, food, and identity in Colombian migrant women in Asturias, Spain. Through a qualitative case study based on life stories from ten women, the article examines the transformations in their food practices after migration, as well as the re-signification of food within this context and its role in identity construction and maintaining the connection with their country of origin. In a context of growing migratory diversity in Asturias, processes of food standardization driven by the globalized economy are identified, along with emerging cultural resistance strategies through food. The article discusses how migrant women adjust their culinary practices as strategies for survival and adaptation, while maintaining their agency in negotiating between assimilation and the preservation of their cultural identity. The concept of the “domestication of globalization” (Mintz, 2003) helps to understand how women reconfigure their eating habits by integrating traditional practices into the domestic sphere, thereby preserving key elements of their culture of origin. The participants’ narratives reveal how food becomes a site of tension between integration and cultural preservation, where the kitchen and the dining table are not only spaces of encounter and adaptation, but also everyday settings of resistance.