LACS Lecture. Eating NAFTA: Mexico in a Post-Migration and Post-Labor Era

Can we speak of Mexico today as having entered a post-migration and post-labor era? What is the place of average Mexicans in the post-NAFTA economy? Is the role imagined for them one only of consumption? If so, what are the health consequences of this? This presentation examines how trade policy and migration have altered one of the most basic elements of life: sustenance. It tells the binational story of the interdependent food system between Mexico and the U.S. and the consequences for people’s everyday lives and health of those interconnections.

How and what people eat in Mexico and the United States has transformed in the last two decades, with massive consequences for public health. This talk is based on Gálvez's book, a study that examines the connections between food policy and migration, and their connection to eating practices and health in Mexican communities on both sides of the border. The North American Free Trade Agreement has been closely analyzed at the level of policy and bilateral politics, including the ways that it has impacted the production and circulation of goods and services in North America. But very little has been done to analyze the micro-level changes to every day life experienced by people in the region. While trade policy has liberalized the flow of goods and currency, it has been accompanied by greater militarization of borders, and an illegalization of the circulation of workers. This study examines the current intersection of trade policy, globalization, and social programs in Mexico I argue that the rise of diet-related illness in Mexico is a logical outgrowth of trade and development policies and arrangements that favor food security over subsistence agriculture, “development” over sustainability, market participation over social welfare, and ideologies of self-care over public health care.