Paqueteros and Paqueteras

Abstract

In this article, I argue that paqueteros and paqueteras humanize an increasingly dehumanized food system, connecting people and places culturally who are divided by borders and food policy. Their activities constitute an important, while underacknowledged link between migrant communities and the places they came from, largely operating informally and without governmental support, although not without official scrutiny. Building on two decades of ethnographic data, I explore the practices and significance of paquetería, informal package deliveries, in the context of US-Mexico food policy after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, recently renamed the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) and an increasingly globalized food system that systematically marginalizes and excludes human-scaled food production, processing, distribution, and consumption in favor of industrialized, corporate food.