‘Now all the world wants to be Oaxacan’: native corn commercialization and changing meanings of southern identities in Mexico
Author: Owen McNamara – Université libre de Bruxelles
Dates: 18 August 2025
Venue: Identities – Global Studies in Culture and Power
Link to the publication: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1070289X.2025.2543662
Throughout Mexico, there has been a boom in interest in native corn and traditional, corn-based, southern, cuisine. In this article, I examine how this growing market niche contributed to changes in the meanings of southern identities, which have long been stigmatized in Mexico. Critical food studies have shown the exploitation often found in the heritagization of foods historically associated with Indigenous or otherwise marginalized communities. I argue that even where exploitation is present, heritagization can simultaneously open the possibility of unsettling other systems of oppression, showing how native corn’s commercialization offered opportunities for Oaxacans to rethink the marginal position that southern identities were allotted within national hierarchies. However, while native corn’s growing esteem might aid in counteracting the prejudice many Oaxacans internalized, I note that this is not happening on southern people’s terms – as the commercialization of native corn has come at the cost of altered Oaxacan moral economies.
