Speaking of Hunger and Coping with Food Insecurity: Experiences in the Afro-Ecuadorian Highlands

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Speaking of Hunger and Coping with Food Insecurity: Experiences in the Afro-Ecuadorian HighlandsGeraldine Moreno-Black a; Carla Guerrón-Montero b

a Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA b Department of Anthropology,University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA

Online Publication Date: 01 September 2005

To cite this Article Moreno-Black, Geraldine and Guerrón-Montero, Carla(2005)'Speaking of Hunger and Coping with Food Insecurity:Experiences in the Afro-Ecuadorian Highlands',Ecology of Food and Nutrition,44:5,391 — 420To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/03670240500253435URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03670240500253435

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Ecology of Food and Nutrition , 44: 391–420, 2005Copyright © Tay lor & Francis Inc.ISSN: 0367-0244 print / 1534-5237 onlineDOI: 10.1080/03670240500253435

GEFN0367-02441534-5237Ecology of Food and Nutrition, Vol. 44, No. 05, August 2005: pp. 0–0Ecology of Food and Nutrition

SPEAKING OF HUNGER AND COPING WITH FOOD INSECURITY: EXPERIENCES IN THE AFRO-ECUADORIAN HIGHLANDS

Food Insecurity and Hunger in an Afro-Ecuadorian CommunityG. Moreno-Black and C. Guerrón-Montero GERALDINE MORENO-BLACK

Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon

CARLA GUERRÓN-MONTERO

Department of Anthropology, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware

Using examples from an Afro-Ecuadorian community, we analyze indicatorsof household food insecurity and discuss them in terms of household struc-ture and different time frames. We found that perceptions of hunger varyindependently over time and are expressed differently in different types ofhouseholds. We also found that definitions, although variable within the pop-ulation, can be framed in five conceptual categories: a) an experience filledwith anguish or despair; b) hunger as an economic issue; c) a concern overchild welfare; d) an experience of the physical body; e) hunger as the experi-ence of not having any food rather than not having variety in what is eaten;and f) those individuals who indicated they had never experienced hunger.

Research for this article was supported by the Center for the Study of Women in Soci-ety (CSWS) at the University of Oregon and a Faculty Research Grant from the Depart-ment of Anthropology. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of theseinstitutions. The authors also thank Carole Counihan, Paul Yovanoff, Cathleen Leue,Nicholás Coronel, Juan José Vázconez, Alexandra Guerrón-Montero, Betty de Aguilar,and Edward Black for their assistance and support during data collection, analysis, andmanuscript preparation. We also acknowledge and appreciate the comments of the anony-mous reviewers. Special gratitude to the community of San Lucas for their friendship andcollaboration in this project.

Address correspondence to Geraldine Moreno-Black, University. E-mail: [email protected]

Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 19:52 29 April 2009

392 G . M OREN O-BLACK A ND C. G UERRÓ N-M O NTERO

We also learned that individuals act and react in a variety of ways to foodinsecurity. Our study highlights the way people attempt to adjust to fluctua-tions in food and resources, how they can feel helpless and alienated, andhow they attempt to do the best they can with dignity and hopefulness.

KEYWORDS Hunger, food insecurity, coping strategies, Afro-Ecuadorian

Today, although the number of people who are malnourished is decreasing,the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization’s (FAO) recentestimates signal a setback in the war against hunger. According to recentinformation, there are still approximately 842 million people in the worldwho are undernourished—798 million of these people live in nonindustrial-ized countries, 34 million in countries in transition, and 10 million in indus-trialized countries (FAO, 2003). Furthermore, it appears that the number ofundernourished people in the developing world is no longer falling butincreasing and almost 200 million of the undernourished are children.

This situation worsens when we consider that food insecurity is a grow-ing problem. During the past decade, food insecurity research has increased,especially in industrialized countries (Frongillo, 1999; Hamelin et al. 1999,2002; Himmelgreen et al., 2000; Quandt and Rao, 1999; Radimer et al.,1992; Rose, 1999), and the term has come to be primarily defined as the abil-ity to obtain enough food for an active, healthy life in a socially acceptablemanner. It can exist with or without hunger and has been associated withrisk of poor nutritional status and poor health outcomes (Adams et al., 2003;Dixon et al., 2001; Olson, 1999; Rose, 1999). Social scientists, policy plan-ners, and politicians have recognized that knowledge of hunger, food secu-rity, and consumption patterns in contemporary societies is of outmostimportance for understanding and addressing nutrition and health problems,and for the development of sound policies.

Our understanding of food security and food insecurity has begun toevolve through increasingly integrated attention to the social, gendered,environmental, technical, and economic dimensions of the problems,especially at the community and household levels (Allen, 1999; Anderson1990; Anderson and Cook, 1999; FAO, 2001). Micro-level studies focusingon food security at the household level have become important for evaluat-ing the strategies that households develop in dealing with food insecurity(Nyariki et al., 2002; Ssewanyana and Ahmadi-Esfahani, 2001).

Some researchers have begun to look more deeply into the experienceof hunger and food insecurity as a means to elaborate evaluation measures


FO OD INSECURITY A ND HU N GER IN A N AFRO-ECU ADORIA N CO M M U NITY 393

as well as programs and policies that are applicable at the local level. Thistype of research began with the early attempts of Radimer et al. to under-stand hunger from the perspective of the individuals who were experienc-ing it (1992) and continues today in the work of Hamlin et al. (2002). Intheir recent research, they sought to reveal the conceptual meanings ofhunger as expressed and experienced by people living in poverty inToronto, Canada. However, as with the majority of research on food inse-curity, this body of literature addresses people in industrialized societies.

The literature that discusses case studies in nonindustrialized societ-ies focuses primarily on economic issues, development of evaluation ormeasurement protocols, household indicators, health status (especiallyissues of obesity and malnutrition) and household composition (Frongilloet al., 2003; Gulliford et al., 2003; Nnakwe and Yegammia, 2002; Nyarikiet al., 2002; Nyariki and Wiggins, 1997; Oh and Hong, 2003). However,research on the social, cultural, and emotional implications of hungerand food insecurity in nonindustrialized societies is absent.

Today, the most recent challenge in food security research lies in thedevelopment and utilization of a perspective that can enable us to understandhow issues related to food insecurity and hunger intersect with people’s lives,particularly in nonindustrialized countries. In this article, we examine andinterpret local experiences of hunger and food insecurity in the context of anonindustrialized community in the Afro-Ecuadorian highlands. Our goalhere is to focus on three issues related to hunger and food insecurity: 1) howperceptions of hunger are rooted in particular contexts and consequently canshift over time; 2) how perceptions of hunger are contextualized differently indifferent types of households (i.e., how household structure may influence theexperience and thus the perception of hunger); and 3) how people attempt toorganize their limited resources and develop behaviors and strategies thatenable them to cope with hunger and food insecurity.

METHODOLOGY

Conceptual Considerations

As indicated above, the first purpose of this study was to expand ourunderstanding of how hunger is perceived by people who experiencefood insecurity in a broad range of situations. The ability to obtain foodoccurs at a number of levels including the community, the region, andthe nation. Most importantly, however, eating and obtaining food first



takes place within the context of households. This context is often invis-ible to the individuals making food policies. Only recently the right tofood at the household level has been contextualized in the concept offood security (Haddad and Kracht, 2002; Misselhorn, 2005; Yaro,2004). Capturing the range and variation in the perception of hungerwill add to our understanding of how to measure these experiences andassist in developing meaningful indicators, programs, and policies thatcan address the problem. Consequently, we interviewed women at twodifferent seasons, in order to examine how perceptions of hunger shiftedin this population.

Our second objective focused on uncovering the way household struc-ture intersects with the experience of food insecurity in a nonindustrializedcommunity. Research points to the fact that at the household level, disad-vantaged groups like women and children are often at a greater risk and con-tinue to be marginalized. Women, especially women in female-headedhouseholds, may not have access to empowerment channels and thus are notable to improve the quality of life for themselves or their family (Kennedyet al. 1994). Considering that—as a general rule—women are in charge ofthe nutritional intake of their families, they should be a targeted group. Awoman’s knowledge, especially her knowledge of food and how to feed herfamily, prevents starvation at the individual and household level. In responseto this fact, we concentrated on the perception of hunger and food insecurityof women from two types of households—female-headed and male/dual-headed families.

Finally, we tackled the issue of how individuals in households man-age to bring food to the table and how they contextualize their liveswithin the context of negotiating the conflicts that may occur betweenavailability of resources and the family’s well-being. In addition to con-cerns about the ability to obtain food, the ability to nurture must also berecognized (Van Esterik, 1999). Providing nurturance is integrated intocultural definitions of status, role, and the division of labor in many soci-eties. Consequently, we focused our attention on the strategies andbehaviors people develop and utilize in endeavoring to cope with hungerand food insecurity.

Ecuadorian Nutrition Policy

The World Bank has labeled Ecuador as a country in the “lower-middle-income” group for the last 20 years. This means that Ecuador has enough



resources to feed its population, but it has failed to do so for a number ofreasons. Throughout its history as an independent nation, differentadministrations have signed treaties and declarations ratifying the rightof every human being (and by inference, every Ecuadorian citizen) tofood, clothing, housing, and medical health.1 In reality, however, therights of Ecuadorian communities (and particularly minorities such asrural Afro-Ecuadorians) to adequate nutrition and health have not beenmet. The right of Ecuadorians to appropriate health and nutrition is nei-ther mentioned nor elaborated in the Constitution of the Republic of1995. Instead “health is included only indirectly as part of the right to anadequate standard of living. As such, it is deprived of its legal and politi-cal power” (Jochnick, 1999:10). In the most recent Constitution (1998),improvements were established by declaring that the State had the obli-gation to guarantee the right to health “through the means of food secu-rity, provision of potable water, basic sanitation, and the possibility ofuninterrupted access to health services” (Jochnick 1999:10). However,health is not considered a public good, which means that universalaccess is not guaranteed. Ecuador has the fourth highest rate of maternalmortality in Latin America. In 1996, 70% of pregnant women and 60%of infants between the ages of 6 and 11 months had anemia, a controlla-ble ailment if adequate nutrition is provided. Rural populations consti-tute 40% of the population, yet 80% of health services run by theMinistry of Health are located in urban settings. Women, children, andethnic minorities are the most affected. Afro-Ecuadorian women clearlyfall into these categories (Jochnick 1999:13).

Population and Sample

The Afro-Ecuadorian population in Ecuador is concentrated primarily inthe province of Esmeraldas in the coast and in the highland valley of ElChota (1600–1900 meters above sea level), in the province of Imbabura.However, Afro-Ecuadorians also live in the provinces of Pichinchaand Guayas. It is difficult to estimate the size of the Afro-Ecuadorianpopulation because the national census is not broken down into racial cat-

1The most important declarations are the International Covenant of Economic, Socialand Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which guarantees the right to food, health, and an adequatestandard of living, and the San Salvador Protocol to the American Convention on HumanRights, which also guarantees the right to health, food, and a healthy environment.



egories. Santacruz (1995), using the Guía del Mundo data, shows the pop-ulation at approximately 524,500 or 5% of the country's 10,490,000people. At present, the urgent problems that need to be addressed for theAfro-Ecuadorian population include both chronic unemployment andunderemployment, lack of health professionals and centers, poor sanita-tion facilities, and high rates of acute malnutrition and maternal mortality

The Afro-Ecuadorian population in this study lives in the highlandValley of El Chota located in the Northern highlands of Ecuador, in theprovince of Imbabura (Figure 1). Fifteen small towns (caseríos) dot thelandscape with populations composed almost entirely of Afro-Ecuador-ians and individuals of mixed ancestry. The inhabitants of the Valley ofEl Chota are also known as “Andean” or “highland” blacks in order todistinguish them from the coastal Afro-Ecuadorian groups. They aredescendants of blacks who were brought to the highlands during the 17thcentury by the Jesuit Order Compañía de Jesús to work as slaves in thesugar cane plantations and properties acquired by the order (Guerrón-Montero, 2000). When slavery was abolished in 1852 by President JoséMaría Urbina, the Afro-Ecuadorian population in the Valley of El Chota

Figure 1. Map of the study site.



remained on haciendas, working first in the debt peonage system knownas concertaje. Later they worked as huasipungueros on haciendas for 4 or5 days a week in exchange for small plots of land which they workedwhen they were not involved in hacienda-based agriculture tasks, andfinally as labor workers. During an early Agrarian Reform, prior to thenational Agrarian Reform of 1964, some Afro-Ecuadorian families in thevalley received plots of land from the haciendas.

Today, the Valley of El Chota is almost entirely populated by Afro-Ecuadorians, but they do have relationships with indigenous peoples inthe province of Imbabura. Highland Afro-Ecuadorians speak Spanish astheir main language. However, because of their proximity to indigenouspopulations (particularly Otavalo and Imbaya), they occasionally useQuichua words as part of their vocabulary. Trade relationships and com-munication have not commonly translated into intermarriage.2 However,several families have compadres and comadres (godfathers and godmoth-ers) who are indigenous peoples. Therefore, relationships are cordial,there is trade and occasional intermarriage, but both groups have nega-tive stereotypes of each other.

At present, the population of the Valley of El Chota has an economyfirmly established around the former hacienda system, with strongattachments to the land and to a lifestyle based on agriculture. The mostimportant crops are beans, tomatoes, sugar cane, yucca, corn, cotton,tobacco, and fruits such as avocados, bananas, grapes, papayas, lemons,and oranges. Since not every family owns land, landless communitymembers find employment through sharecropping, and as wage laborersin sugar refineries, construction, and small-scale commercial activities,or in the service industry as cooks or waiters in the nearby tourism zone.

We located our research in a small town of approximately 150 fami-lies, with a population of 800 inhabitants. The community, which we callSan Lucas,3 is neither harmonic nor homogeneous in terms of socialstratification and economic status. Stratification in the community isbased upon three fundamental elements: access to economic resources,family configuration, and education. Dual-headed households have a

2Although not common, intermarriage between indigenous peoples and black popula-tions does take place in the Valley of El Chota. For instance, in San Lucas one indigenouswoman is married to a black man.

3San Lucas is a pseudonym we use in reference to the community studied.



higher status and greater acceptance than female-headed households(Guerrón-Montero, 2000).

Our previous research on the nutritional status of children showedthat they experience growth faltering for both height-for-age andweight-for-age (Moreno-Black and Guerrón-Montero, 2001). However,within the community of San Lucas, children living in female-headedhouseholds did not differ from children in male/dual-headed house-holds in terms of weight. They did appear to be taller than those inmale/dual-headed households, and thus deviate less from the U.S.National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) standards (Dean et al.,1995; Florencio, 2001; Hammill et al., 1979; Moreno-Black andGuerrón-Montero, 2001). This is partly due to the fact that women infemale-headed households tend to use most of their resources for feed-ing and caring for their children, whereas in dual/male headed house-holds men separate some of their earnings for personal use such asentertainment. Finally, our results indicated that grandchildren livingin households where their parents are not the head of household suffergrowth retardation in terms of both weight-for-age and weight-for-agez-scores. These children appear to be the most vulnerable within thehousehold context possibly because of increased competition with chil-dren of the head of household or the lower status of their parents interms of household dynamics and power structure (Moreno-Black andGuerrón-Montero, 2001).

Data Collection

This study was conducted within the framework of a larger study (Guerrón-Montero and Moreno-Black, 2001; Moreno-Black and Guerrón-Montero,2001) which covered two time periods—June 1997 to September 1997 andDecember 1999. Demographic information such as age, income, occupa-tion, household structure, and composition were obtained through admin-istration of the standard Ecuadorian census survey to which we addedquestions pertinent to our study. Because the Ecuadorian government doesnot provide data on caseríos, we surveyed the entire village of San Lucasand complete census data was obtained from all 114 households that wereoccupied. Our sample consisted of 48 households. We interviewed womenfrom 15 of the 21 female-headed households (FHH) in the community.There were 93 dual/male headed households (D/MHH) and we randomlyselected 33 women from these D/MHH.



Since the objectives of this study were to explore perceptions ofhunger and the experiences of household food insecurity, we inter-viewed participants using an open-ended questionnaire based on theconcepts presented in the Radimer/Cornell Hunger and Food Insecu-rity questionnaire (Radimer et al., 1990, 1992). In this part of ourproject, we took this perspective because we felt, like they did, that indi-viduals’ personal experiences could provide us with a better understand-ing of hunger and food insecurity and the ways in which they areperceived. In this process, we sought to use a paradigm that positionedexperience as the main voice and thus the source of information in termsof the conceptualization of food insecurity. Consequently, we believedthat through listening to people speak of their experiences and percep-tions, we were able to develop a set of variables or an elaborate concep-tualization of food insecurity around an experiential base. These werethe variables used to gain insight into the lived experiences of people inthe community.

In order to understand the coping strategies of Afro-Ecuadorianhouseholds, we created an open-ended questionnaire addressing basiccharacteristics of food insecurity. These indicators were adapted fromthe work of Radimer et al. (1990, 1992) based on our knowledgeobtained from ethnographic research in the community. Our evalua-tion of household insecurity was based on responses to the followingfactors:

• No food: Having days in the past month/6 months during which therewas no food in the house or resources to obtain food.

• Skipping meals: Having days in the past month/6 months when theinterviewee indicated a meal or meals were skipped because of limitedfood availability.

• Choosing bills or food: Having to choose between buying food or pay-ing bills in the past month/6 months.

• Choosing to buy medicine or food: Having to choose between obtain-ing food or purchasing medicine in the past month/6 months.

We also interviewed the participants about their perceptions of con-straints affecting their ability to balance household economic needs interms of food, bills, and medicines, as well as the ways the intervieweescoped with these competing needs. Since household activities—espe-cially those regarding food acquisition—in agrarian-based societies can



vary seasonally, we asked these questions in two different seasons (summerand winter). The annual precipitation on the Valley is approximately 330mm and can be described as having a semi-desert landscape. The Valleyhas two main seasons: a long dry season (June–August) and a short dryseason (November–December). Additionally, the area has experiencedconsiderable deforestation; however, the soil is fertile and is irrigated andsuitable for growing a number of products.

Data Analysis

As mentioned above, we interviewed the participants in two time peri-ods. The interviews were analyzed using a content analysis framework.This type of qualitative analysis is especially appropriate for capturingmeanings; emphasis and themes, which then provide insight about theinterviewees’ feelings and experiences of hunger and food insecurity(Berelson, 1952; DeVault, 1990). For our content analysis, we estab-lished key analytic categories from the interviews. The analytic catego-ries were then used as coding variables and were based on our desire tounderstand the discourses used by San Lucas women when speakingabout their experiences of food insecurity. The categories were formu-lated by breaking down the interviewees’ comments into smaller mean-ingful units, which were then categorized and regrouped into conceptualcategories. Interview analysis and interpretation were facilitated by theuse of Ethnograph 5.0 (Qualis, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA). The datawere also transferred to SPSS 11.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA,1997) for quantitative analysis.

RESULTS

All of the interviewees were women and nearly one-third (31.3%) werefrom female-headed households. Table 1 shows the basic demographicinformation concerning the study sample. Although female-headedand dual-headed households varied significantly in terms of income,they did not vary for the educational level of adult females in thehousehold. The mean for the level of education for the women was3.45 years (sd = 2.54). Correlation analysis showed that the relationshipof income level to household size was not significant. However, we rec-ognize that a significant number of female-headed households (7/13) did



not provide information concerning their earnings, primarily because itvaried and the women were not able or willing to make an estimate.Although we obtained information concerning the presence or absenceof some household property (such as refrigerators, adequate cookingfacilities, etc.), we did not use the information to construct an eco-nomic index.

Household Food Insecurity

A significant number of interviewees stated that they were living in cir-cumstances where food insecurity was common (Table 2). More thanhalf of the women indicated that in the previous month they had experi-enced days during which there was either no food in the house orresources to obtain it. Similarly, 51% indicated that they had skippedone or more meals during the month. A lack of sufficient food or

Table 1. Household Demographic and Economic Characteristics

Characteristic n Mean SD

Household size†

Female-headed 15 4.20 2.18Dual-headed 32 4.59 2.11

Total population 47 4.47 2.11

Number of children currently in householdFemale-headed 15 2.87 1.85Dual-headed 33 2.70 2.01


Monthly income* (Sucres)‡



Estimated weekly food expenses (Sucres)‡



† Household structure:FHH: Single = 7; Widow = 6; Divorced = 1; Refused to answer =1.D/MHH: Married = 28; Widow = 3; Living together = 2.* p ! 001.‡ $ 1.00 U.S. = $5,500 sucres.



resources to obtain food in the present or the past was expressed in avariety of ways:

I haven’t had money to buy food; we eat at times and at others wedon’t (D/M HH 49 years of age).

We don’t have money, and without money you can’t do anything(FHH 30 years of age).

Sure, there have been those days [days with hunger]. Some weeks thefood is gone and there is no money (D/MHH 54 years of age).

We haven’t had much food because we haven’t had money to buy it(D/MHH 51 years of age).

Another important indicator of household food insecurity was thestruggle to meet economic obligations, thus putting families in the situa-tion of having to choose between food and other necessities. A significantnumber of individuals (85%) indicated that they were faced with choos-ing between buying food and paying bills during the previous month and43% indicated they paid bills over buying food. The difficulty of this situ-ation was expressed as follows:

In order to pay electricity and water I have to buy less food, becausewhat I have is not enough (FHH 36 years of age).

I prefer to pay electricity, because you can’t live in the darkness (D/MHH 53 years of age).

Table 2. Percentage of Households in the Sample Who Experienced the Food InsecurityIndicators

Food Insecurity Indicator During Past Month During Past 6 Months

No food or resources to buy food 56% 67%Skip one or more meals 51% 49%Choose between food or bills 85% 84%Choose bills first over food 63% 64%Choose between food or medicine 51% 62%



I have to make an effort to pay electricity and water, because if they cutthe electricity we have to request a reconnection of the service to thecompany, and that is more expensive. When I have to pay the bills forthe month I don’t buy the same amount of food (FHH 33 years of age).

If I have to pay the electricity bill, I have to remain almost withoutfood. Otherwise they will cut [me cortan] the electricity and waterservices. I choose to pay the bills (D/MHH 46 years of age).

I choose to pay the electricity bill because otherwise they come to cutit. So I have to give less food to the family (FHH 46 years of age).

Thirty-five percent of the women interviewed indicated that they hadto choose between food and medicine. The choice of paying for medicinewas not as problematic as it was for other expenses since illness withinthe family was variable over time, and a small number of families (n=3)indicated they had access to a social security system that paid for theirmedical costs.4

If my family is ill I choose buying medicine over buying food becausewe have to take care of our health. But this month I haven’t boughtany medicine because I haven’t gotten sick (D/MHH 25 years of age).

We bought medicines first, because my sister was sick (FHH32 years of age).

I choose the food, because we are affiliated to the Peasant SocialSecurity system. They give you the medicine there (D/MHH 34years of age).

Speaking of Hunger

Defining and Expressing the Experience of Hunger. “Being hungryis to have anguish, despair, the person suffers”, one 67-year-old woman

4In theory, everyone who is affiliated with the Social Security Office has access to thePeasant Social Security System, which is the rural version of the Social Security System inthe rest of the country. A person needs to work for somebody to be affiliated to the SocialSecurity System. The Ecuadorian government is the source of the system.



from a D/MHH household said in response to our question about theexperience of hunger. “As long as you have something [to eat] you do notexperience hunger. As long as you have something, your stomach isentertained, otherwise it is suffering,” she continued. Each intervieweewas asked to explain what hunger meant to them, and the discussionsreported here offer a view of how women in San Lucas perceive hunger intheir lives.

When we reviewed the information provided by the interviewees, sixthemes or hunger concepts emerged (Table 3). We labeled the themesaccording to a central idea that was linked with the experience of hunger:a) hunger as an experience filled with anguish or despair; b) hunger as aneconomic issue; c) hunger as something associated with concern overchild welfare; d) hunger as an experience of the physical body; e) hungeras the experience of not having any food rather than not having variety inwhat is eaten; and f) never having experienced hunger. Although wedescribe these themes as discrete entities here, it was common for aninterviewee to raise more than one of the issues in their description ofhunger. In analyzing the data, we evaluated each theme separately.

In the more personal descriptions, individuals define hunger as apainful experience or as an experience related to a physical sensation:

It’s when the belly cries, you feel bad (D/MHH 40 years of age).

Your insides are twisted, you feel like [you have] a knot in your belly(D/MHH 28 years of age).

It is sad, and you feel that your body is halfway fainting (FHH 33years of age).

My belly hurts or I faint. I have a headache (FHH 28 years of age).

Some women also expressed strong emotional experiences: “It’s ananxiety to live, because we can’t live without food” (FHH 42 years ofage); “It’s a [feeling of] desperation, because with food you keep yourselfup. Otherwise, how could we?” (D/MHH 22 years of age); “[Hunger is]something very ugly, something that happens to all of us” (FHH 32 yearsof age); “It’s the biggest need” (D/MHH 31 years of age). For somewomen, hunger appeared to be an experience that could not be managed



Table 3. Description of Hunger as Expressed by Respondents

Elements From Respondents Statements

Conceptual Categories

Hunger Concepts

1. it is a need; the biggest need need2. person feels despair3. means anguish &despair4. not have anything to eat and suffer

because of thatdespair and suffering Hunger as an

emotional state5. it is giving up because nothing to do6. something very sad sadness7. it is anxiety because can't live w/o

food8. It is like killing yourself related to death9. we die of hunger10. causes pain & crying because of the

children11. family experiences hunger feeding the family Hunger associated with

concern for children12. it happens when nothing to eat for a

day or 3, especially for children13. it is spoiling the stomach14. head & stomach hurt15. belly asks for food sensations directly

related to the stomach

16. tiredness in the stomach Hunger associated with physical body

17. like a languor in the stomach18. insides twisted, knot in the belly19. it is a sickness general body issue20. body decays21. feel tired & dizzy &look bad22. not having anything to eat23. It happens when there is nothing to

cooklimitation of choice,

variety24. boredom and/or amount of

foodHunger associated with

amount of food25. nice to eat variety26. not have anything body likes27. lack of economy28. not enough money to eat even if

hungry



or controlled: “[A person experiences hunger] when a person doesn’thave the [economic] possibilities or is poor” (MHH 50 years of age);“It’s desperation, there is nothing to do” (D/MHH 53 years of age).

Many of the women also expressed their perceptions of hunger in abroader framework. In these cases, hunger was discussed in the contextof household and family matters. They clearly linked hunger to issues ofhousehold economics. In this context, hunger was equated with beingpoor or connected to budgetary concerns, such as not having enoughmoney to buy food, not being paid their salary on time, or having com-peting economic needs in the household which divert income away fromexpenditures for food.

The Shifting Temporal Context of Hunger. Although hunger is achronic occurrence, we found that in this community, the experience ofhunger is not fixed over time. When asked what time of year was the mostproblematic or difficult in terms of bringing food to the household, thewomen responded in several ways. These responses can be grouped intothree different time categories (at all times; special occasions associatedwith extra expenses; and seasonal variation). Thirty-one percent of the

Table 3. Continued.

Elements From Respondents Statements

Conceptual Categories

Hunger Concepts

29. if the family is not paid on time they are hungry

limitations due to wages, pay or economic resources

Hunger associated with economics/ poverty

30. no economic resources31. when don't have money to buy food32. when you are poor you are hungry association with

general state of poverty

33. It is to be poor34. I do not know what it is to be hungry never experienced

hunger35. always had some basic food Never experienced

hunger36. had something to eat or sell for

moneycapacity to ward off

hunger37. never been hungry because garden

has food to eat



women indicated that they found it difficult to manage their householddietary needs throughout the year and said things such as: “The wholeyear has been as bad, sometimes it’s good during harvest”(D/MHH 49years of age); and “It’s always the same, it’s bad” (FHH 51 years of age).For 27% of the interviewees, difficulties arose when they were con-fronted with extra expenses such as school fees or religious holidays:

October and September are the hardest days because children startclasses, and I have to buy their school supplies, uniforms, and Ispend more (D/MHH 31 years of age).

Every year is difficult, but there are months that are harder than oth-ers. On holidays I try to look for special food, such as chicken ormeat (D/MHH 25 years of age).

I think the hardest months are October and November because it’stime to look for money for children’s schooling. March and April arealso hard. December is hard too because the children ask: ‘Mom, Iwant a Christmas gift, a little car, a doll,’ and there is no money, so wehave to suffer without giving them anything (D/MHH 46 years of age).

Additionally, other women (6%) indicated they experienced difficul-ties in specific seasons. A woman from a female-headed household men-tioned, “the hardest months are when it rains, because there is no money,and we can’t go out to work” (FHH 30 years of age). However, otherwomen indicated the dry seasons, especially when planting was prevalent(June–August) were the most difficult. The small number of women whofocused on environmental factors indicates the availability of cash, andnonagricultural employment impacted the context and conceptualizationof food security more than agricultural cycles. There were a few women(6%) who did not find any time to be problematic.

In addition to differences in the perceptions of difficult times, a com-parison of the way the women explained and perceived their hungerexperiences differed in the two interview periods. Our analysis of theresponses to the question “What is the meaning of hunger to you/whatdoes it mean to be hungry?” showed that the answers were more variablein September 1997 than they were in December 1999. As can be seen inTable 4, none of the women framed their hunger experience in terms of



the broader context (family) during December 1999 and a larger numberof interviewees focused on the physical experience of hunger. A chi-square analysis also showed that the responses in the two interview peri-ods were independent.

Comparison of the Expression of Hunger in Female-Headed and Dual/Male-Headed Househo lds. Since the number of respondents inany one category was small, clear, strong statistical differences were notobtained when dual/male-headed household and female-headed house-hold comparisons were run, except in the expression of hunger as an eco-nomic concern (Table 5). Hunger was associated with economic issuesmore frequently in the dual-headed households than in the female house-holds (p = 04). This contrast is not completely surprising since female-headed households are poorer than dual-headed households in terms ofmonthly salary. Thus it would seem that the women in female-headedhouses are already coping with limited economic resources and do notperceive variations in food resources in the context of their income.

Women from both types of households were found to express hunger inrelation to issues concerning hunger in children. They talked about hungerin this context by referencing children or the entire household: a) “Whenthere is no food I start to cry; you can stand hunger but the children can’tand they start to cry even more” (FHH 32 years of age), or b) “[Hunger]happens when there is nothing to eat for a day or three; more than that is notpossible, particularly for the children” (FHH 75 years of age). Although

Table 4. Variability in the Expression and Perceptions of Hunger in the Two InterviewPeriods

Hunger Theme 1997 1999

n % n %

Hunger associated with anguish 12 26.7 5 14.3Hunger associated with economics 12 26.7 2 5.7Hunger associated with concern for children 4 8.9 0 –Hunger associated with physical body 7 15.6 19 54.3Hunger associated with amount of foodInterviewee specifically indicated they had never

experienced hunger13 28.9 0 –



interviewees from both types of households framed their descriptions ofhunger in the context of not having anything to eat—“[Hunger] is not havinganything to eat; as long as you have something, you are not hungry” (FHH30 years of age)—we found that women from female-headed householdsexpressed hunger in these terms more often. These descriptions can belabeled “food depletion” descriptions in comparison to those that explaineda boring or repetitive diet such as: “It is what the person feels before eatingevery meal,” more commonly found in dual-headed households. Addition-ally, the concept of a boring or repetitive diet often involved commentsregarding not having anything that anyone liked, being bored with eating thesame things, or not having any variety.

Coping w ith Food Insecurity and Hunger. “We look, we work, we dothe impossible.” This is how one 51-year-old woman in a male/dualheaded household spoke of her actions and reactions in the face of foodinsecurity. Women in the households interviewed were not passive in theface of hunger and food insecurity. However, some did speak of hope-lessness and acceptance of their situation. According to the descriptionsof their actions and reactions, the strategies for dealing with food insecu-rity revolved around 24 core elements of coping patterns. Our review ofthese elements led us to regroup them into three main strategy categories(Table 6). Uncovering and highlighting these lived experiences can helpus gain a better understanding of these women’s agency in dealing with

Table 5. Comparison of Hunger Themes Expressed in the Female-Headed and Dual/Headed Households

Hunger Theme Female-Headed

Male- Headed

"2

n % n %

Hunger associated with emotion 3 21.4 9 29.0 0.285Hunger associated with economics 1 7.1 11 35.5 3.961*Hunger associated with concern for children 2 14.3 2 6.5 0.731Hunger associated with physical body 5 14.3 5 16.1 0.025Hunger associated with amount of food 6 42.9 5 16.1 3.731*Interviewee specifically indicated they

had never experienced hunger4 28.6 9 29.0 0.975

* p ! 05.



food insecurity. These categories draw attention to how experiences wereinternalized and translated into actions.

On the one hand, only a small number of interviewees indicated theycould only accept the situation or had no way to alleviate it:

From our work, we wait until we get paid and distribute from the lit-tle bit we have (D/MHH 30 years of age).

When there is food, the [children] eat what we have, and when thereis no food, they eat a little bit. I cook a little bit when there is nofood, and when there is food, they eat more. They are adapted towhat we give them. In reality, when there is little food they are hun-gry but they have to accept it (D/MHH 54 years of age).

Table 6. Categories of Individual Actions for Coping with Recent or Past Food Insecurity

Core Elements of Coping Patterns from Respondents Statements

Core Characteristics Coping Strategies

Borrowing or lending money Help each other

Giving foodActions relying on

social networksChild and grandchildren work Ask relatives

Accept charityMaintain the household with valley/

garden foodRely on “valley

food”Plant food on own or other’s plot of land

Ask for a loanActions to secure

food moneyWait until getting paid; then distributing

what is availableActions to bring food

into houseAsk relatives to work or provide moneyGathering wild foodKeep food in refrigerator Actions to defer cost

of foodPurchase food by creditWait until getting paid; then distributing

what money is availableManage with what is available Actions focused on

accepting the situation

Distributing the food in three mealsDo nothing



On the other hand, the majority of the women interviewed indicatedthat they had developed ways of dealing with the difficulties they encoun-tered meeting their family’s needs. In this community, social networksoften provided a safety net or a means of handling the difficult situationsin their own homes. Social networks included family and friends. Forwomen in female-headed households, these networks sometimesextended to the biological father of their children. These networks wereused to provide food or loans for purchasing food:

This month, the little Virgin [Mary] has helped me. Little food hasnot been lacking, at least a little herb tea [agüita] because my daugh-ter works and my son, who lives in La Victoria [Ibarra], gives me amonthly payment… (FHH 28 years of age).

I have had days [of hunger]. People give charity to me. If my childrendon’t give me anything, other little persons [personitas] give mesomething. God pays them (FHH 87 years of age).

The social network coping strategy involves two types of relationships.First, many women talked about their activities as part of a reciprocal orcommunity set of relationships which concerned a give-and-take networkof expectations and responsibilities. Some of the women explained theirrelationships in the following ways: “We lend money among neighbors;neighbors help a lot”(D/MHH age not known); “Sometimes there is notenough money, but we help each other among neighbors and lend moneyto one another” (D/MHH 55 years of age). However, some women spokeof the difficulties in asking for money and some specifically indicated theycould not or would not engage in these types of requests:

I have had times without food because there was no means to getfood. It is not possible to go to your neighbor, so all you can do issuffer, each one on their own (D/MHH 53 years of age).

Sometimes somebody lends me money, but it’s hard to pay back andI am late in paying (D/MHH 49 years of age).

Assistance may also involve the direct giving of food rather thanmoney: “People give me a little yucca [manioc or cassava], a little rice”



(FHH age not known); “We help our neighbors, and they give us [fooditems] as a gift or a loan” (D/MHH 46 years of age).

The second type of social network assistance came from family rela-tionships. For these women there was an expectation that family mem-bers would provide assistance on a regular basis and in times of need:“My mom’s sister lends me money” (FHH 32 years of age); “I have toask my relatives or work in something else (I usually work at the marketin Ibarra) or ask the father of the children for money” (FHH 36 years ofage). However, some admitted that this did not always happen:

I have been suffering a lot. I have a son in Quito, and married grand-children and I cannot ask them for help [. . .] My little daughter goesto Ibarra and washes clothes, and she comes with food; my littlegrandsons work at IANCEM,5 and through their work we get food(FHH age not known).

A number of women spoke of taking action to ward off hunger andinsecurity by altering their eating patterns, relying on wild food or any-thing available in their garden plots or engaging in income generatingactivities such as selling gathered snails or wild strawberries, firewood,cooked food, or coffee at the market:

I don’t have money to buy some things. For example, at night I don’tmake a main dish [seco] but only a soup, sometimes I make coffee orsometimes juice (FHH 36 years of age).

We have to keep moving and work, we have to cook chicken withyucca if that is all we have (FHH 46 years of age).

Whatever food we have, we distribute it in three meals (FHH30 years of age).

Income-generating activities were described in a number of ways:

We make coal, sell it and look for a solution (D/MHH 67 years of age).

5IANCEM is an acronym for Ingenio Azucarero del Norte’ Compañía de EconomíaMixta (Northern Sugar Cane Refinery).



Even the rich people, when they are rich, they also need [money] some-times [al rico cuando se es rico tan le hace falta]; when I am in need I makefood and sell it at the [nearby] police station (FHH 46 years of age).

Finally, women also spoke of finding food in their plots of land orusing wild food in the following ways: “Since this is the countryside, youcan go out and find anything and cook it” (D/MHH 22 years of age);”Ican go out to the hills and pick up snails” (FHH 51 years of age). Somewomen also indicated that they attempted to defer shortages by buyingfood when money was available (the beginning of the month, for instance),using a refrigerator for storage, or relying on credit at small local storesor—in the case of the sugar cane refinery workers—the refinery store:

Sometimes I do not have food because I am waiting to receive themoney fortnightly (la quincena). What I do is ask for a loan. I ask at[work] and they subtract the money from my fortnightly pay (D/MHH 40 years of age).

What I do is go to a store where people know me, and I ask for credituntil my husband receives the fortnightly pay and I can cancel mydebt (D/MHH 46 years of age).

Thirteen women (29%) indicated that they and their family had not experi-enced hunger. When women spoke of not having experienced hunger, theyusually offered a reason. Such reasons also provide insight into coping strat-egies. The women from San Lucas specifically mentioned yucca as a foodthat they were able to rely on in times of scarcity. Others indicated that theywere able to eat on a regular basis because basic foods were always available:

For food, I have no problem. I cannot lie to you because I alwayshave a monthly salary and with it I buy food. We cannot eat meatevery day, we eat it every 8 days, but there is always a vegetable or agrain (FHH 36 years of age).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

In this article, we examined how San Luqueños, especially women,express their perceptions and experiences of hunger and food insecurity.



Huss-Ashmore and Thomas (1997) stress that how people perceivetheir environment is vital because perceptions shape responses. SanLuqueños, like most of the Afro-Ecuadorian highland population, copewith poverty, hunger, and poor standards of living on a daily basis.Because of their profound knowledge of their environment, they areable to utilize its resources to maximize their access to food, particu-larly in times of scarcity.

It is clear that in this community there is a range of experiencesregarding hunger. Some people talked about never having experiencedhunger, while some people spoke of hunger in terms of despair and suf-fering. For these families, hunger was an experience that they felt theycould not control or manage. When we examined the way people spokeof hunger and their hunger experiences, we found that these experiencescould be grouped into four conceptual categories that involved physicalexperiences, economic issues, concerns about family responsibilities, andemotional states. We also found that the perception of hunger was notstable over time. Perceptions and experiences differed seasonally aswell as in reference to the shifting constraints imposed by cycles ofexpenses for electricity, unexpected events related to illness, and socialobligations.

Different levels of perceptions were expressed in these conceptualcategories. First, a more narrow, personal, emotional or physical body-based perception is clear. In these descriptions we hear of the personalexperience of hunger as pain or physical sensations (headaches, stom-ach pains, dizziness, burning in the gut) as well as strong emotionalexperiences (suffering, wanting to cry, anguish, despair, and wanting tokill oneself). In this regard, hunger appeared to be an uncontrollableexperience. Many of the interviewees also expressed their views abouthunger in a broader framework. In this expanded conceptualization,hunger was discussed in the context of household and family issues.These individuals clearly linked hunger to issues of household eco-nomic issues. Hunger in this context was equated with being poor orassociated with budgetary concerns, such as not having enough moneyto buy food, not being paid their salary on time, or having competingeconomic needs in the household that divert income away from expen-ditures for food.

We also found that perceptions of hunger differed by householdstructure. Our interest in looking at the perceptions of hunger in relationto household structure grew out of information obtained in our previous



project as well as data available from other projects. Our concernsderived from the disquieting results that we were seeing in the comparisonof nutritional status and dietary patterns in female-headed householdsand male-headed households (Moreno-Black and Guerrón-Montero,2001). We found that women from dual/ male-headed households weremore likely to express their hunger experiences within an economicframework. However, the interviewees from female-headed householdsspoke of hunger in terms of problems of food supply or quantity of foodrather than quality of the diet. For these families food depletion wasexpressed as not “having anything to cook” or “nothing to eat in thehouse” rather than lack of money to buy food.

Economic constraints impacted the women in the two different typesof households in different ways. Our previous research (Guerrón-Montero and Moreno-Black, 2001) suggested that there was limited vari-ation in food consumption in the community despite the significant dif-ference in income between the two types of households. This suggeststhat in the wealthier dual/male-headed households, extra income wasused to meet other needs. In this way, we see as did Holtzman (2002),that the production and distribution of food within the home is con-nected with political processes of the society. While the tendency mightbe to see the female-headed households as more vulnerable due to eco-nomic constraints, it appears that the women in these households man-age their limited resources and frame their strategies in the context ofhousehold well-being. Thus, the gastropolitics of the community and thehousehold intersect, leading to differences in perceptions of hunger andframing coping strategies.

In reviewing some of the recent literature on food insecurity (Hamelinet al., 2002; Himmelgreen et al., 2000; Quandt and Rao, 1999; Radimeret al., 1992), we can see some similarities in the conceptualizations ofhunger and food insecurity despite the fact that our study was located ina agricultural population in Ecuador while the others focused their workin U.S. and Canadian urban populations. Like their counterparts in theU.S. and Canada, the women of San Lucas expressed their perceptionsand experience of hunger in terms of physical symptoms, monotony ofthe diet, food depletion, concerns over family welfare, and emotional dis-tress. However, their coping strategies both overlap and differ. By com-paring the findings from these studies, our study clearly shows that theexperience of hunger must be addressed in terms of social, psychological,and physical ramifications.



Our research further indicates that in San Lucas, women and theirfamilies experience a relatively high level of food insecurity. Thewomen in this sample use their own skills and knowledge to createstrategies to cope with the actual or anticipated food insecurity. None-theless, the burden of insecurity is high in terms of emotional and bio-logical well-being. Understanding the ways in which families deal withfood insecurity and hunger can lead to a clearer picture of the extent ofthese problems in a community. Coping strategies are embedded in asociety’s infrastructure at the local, regional, and national level and areintrinsically bound to the political structure of society. For example,unlike the U.S. and Canada, Ecuador does not have a formalized wel-fare system involving food stamps or other food assistance programsthat can be accessed by this population. Consequently, in Ecuador,government interventions are limited, and personal and family net-works predominate. In the U.S., many people rely on a network of gov-ernment agencies and charitable organizations. However, for a varietyof reasons, a significant number of people in the U.S. are unable toaccess the established safety network, and many of these individualsuse the same coping strategies discussed in this article. Indeed, onecould argue that they constitute a set of universal coping strategies usedeverywhere food insecurity exists.

The women in this study relied on their own ability to manage theirresources, gifts, and loans from family and friends and the generosity ofcommunity members. They also attempted to rely on their own resourcesby stretching what income they had, skipping meals themselves in orderto feed their children, and deferring the purchase of medicine or payingother bills when possible. However, they often needed to extend theboundaries of self-reliance to include individuals outside the familysphere through borrowing, accepting charity, and local sources of credit.The coping strategies used by these women are multi-layered, complex,and sometimes conflicting. While these strategies often enable families toget by, and may even provide sufficient resources in the short term toalleviate immediate experiences of hunger and enable adequate childgrowth, in the long run they only increase the anxieties and burdens thesewomen encounter.

While policymakers may recognize the importance of understandingintra-household issues (in relationship to allocation of economic and mate-rial resources, decision-making, and definition of household needs), theyoften lack guidance in exactly when and how a better comprehension of



resource allocation and food fluctuations within households can strengthenfood, agricultural, and health policies. Jochnick (1999) points out thataccess to these basic services should not be considered a need but a humanright. According to Jochnick, “framing these issues in terms of rights pro-vides a new context for resolving the problems: first by insisting on account-ability from government institutions and second by turning the passivevictims of neglect into active agents” (1999:4). Our study provides impor-tant insights into the need to design research studies which generate infor-mation that will assist in the development of policies, programs, andprojects precisely because they take into account perceptions and strategieswithin the household.

The findings of our study strongly suggest that we need to look deeplyinto the lives of people in order to understand what is expressed on theirbody and in their words. When we explored the descriptions of the copingstrategies used to mask food insecurity, we found that the voices of thesewomen were filled with desire. They express the desire to have enoughfood to eat. In addition, their words reveal their desire to choose their ownrole in life, to be fed and to feed. Finally, their words reveal their desire tolive their lives with dignity. As Van Esterik (1999) points out, women aremore likely to be responsible for feeding family members, yet they are theless likely to be involved in shaping policies that affect their food systemsand consequently their access to food. “Understanding and addressingthese basic inequities should be the ultimate goal of inclusive policy devel-opment, and women’s roles in defining, identifying, and alleviating hungerneed to be recognized and integrated into these policies.”

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Speaking of Hunger and Coping with Food Insecurity: Experiences in the Afro-Ecuadorian Highlands

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