Trafkintu: seed curators defending food sovereignty
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Abstract
This paper examines the resurgence of Trafkintu, an ancient Mapuche ritual of seed trade; now as a folk-communication practice of resistance, against neoliberal transformations in farming that threaten food sovereignty of rural communities in southern Chile. Drawing on
participant observation and semi-structured interviews with peasant and Mapuche women involved in these practices, we show that seed curators women act as agents that revalue the localness [lo local] through a process of resignification of Trafkintu, this time linking it to
food self-sufficiency. In addition, they build networks between indigenous and peasant communities as a resistance strategy. However, this resurgence of Trafkintu becomes ambivalent as its new symbolic expression is being appropriated by local mainstream
politicians, for electoral purposes, to promote an image of 'concern about popular culture'. That is, a tool of resistance, on the one hand, and a kind of political folk-marketing, on the other.
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