“American rice is cleaner”: marketplace hybridity and the cultural transformation of food in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

PurposeThe article offers a study of the central food marketplace in Santiago, Dominican Republic. The purpose of the study is to explore how changes in the marketplace reflect transformation of urban food systems resulting from neoliberal restructuring during the final decades of the twentieth century.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on long-term qualitative research conducted during the late 1990s and early 2000s, including ethnographic and survey methods, the article illustrates how central urban marketplaces offer a window into transitions in both international and domestic food economies.FindingsResearch findings illustrate that the marketplace in Santiago operated in a state of economic hybridity, intermixing long established regionally produced domestic crops such as yuca, plantains and pigeon peas deeply rooted in Dominican agrarian culture with products dervived from liberalization of the Dominican economy such as imported rice, beans and eventually numerous Dominican food staples.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited by the scope of analysis which is one urban marketplace. More sites for researching marketplaces could be added for more comparative analysis.Practical implicationsThe research findings have implications for how governments define social and economic policy that impacts domestic food producers and intermediary brokers that aggregate and debulk food to feed cities.Originality/valueThe scholarship raises questions about how the social and economic organization of urban marketplaces in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere reflect historical transitions in local, national and global economies.