Eating as a migrant

Internacional migration and food

Abstract

In a global context marked by the intensification of human mobility, international migration has emerged as one of the most significant social phenomena of our time. According to recent United Nations data, in 2024 the number of international migrants reached 304 million people, representing 3.6% of the world population. This reality, often perceived as a challenge for nation-states, has placed migration at the center of contemporary social research.

From this perspective, this editorial proposes viewing migration as a vital experience shaped by movement, displacement, and the construction of connections that transcend borders. Beyond structural factors, it emphasizes the importance of migrants’ everyday lives, their relationships with both origin and destination territories, and the cultural processes that emerge from these trajectories.

Within this framework, food plays a central role as a privileged space to observe cultural continuities and transformations, a topic we consider important to highlight. Understood as both a social and symbolic practice, food allows us to explore identities, memories, emotions, and senses of belonging, while also reflecting dynamics of exchange, mestizaje, and hybridization inherent to migratory contexts. At AFOCUN, we wish to underscore this topic of growing relevance, given its capacity to illuminate the complex social, cultural, and emotional dynamics that shape the migratory experience in contemporary contexts.