Sarah Szurek, a graduate student under the direction of Dr. Kathryn Oths, will undertake field research to investigate the social and cultural factors that influence dietary shifts among Mexican immigrants after they arrive in the southeast United States. In particular, she will examine the role of social network interaction between immigrants and local community members in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in changing daily food habits.
In the first phase of the research, Szurek will conduct interviews with immigrants and non-immigrant residents about their food habits, language competence, media exposure, and social integration. She also will construct inventories of foods available in local stores and restaurants. In the second phase, she will survey a sample of each population and use cognitive anthropological methodologies (cultural domain analysis and cultural consensus analysis) to determine cognitive models of foods, each model's structure, the degree of sharedness within and between groups, and the range of model variability. Additional data on actual food consumption patterns will be compared to the cultural models using cultural consonance analysis. Social network interaction will be the major variable used to predict the type of food model an immigrant will be competent in and consonant with, ultimately predicting fruit and vegetable consumption. Environmental, economic, structural, and demographic variables such as produce availability and cost, exposure to media, length of time in the United States, and English language competence will be entered into the final regression analysis in order to control for competing hypotheses.
The aim of this research is to advance theoretical understanding of food choice, foodways, the processes of immigration and culture change,and the cultural forces that influence the individual daily diet. The research is important because it may help explain why immigrant groups do or do not experience diet related health problems such as diabetes and obesity. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.
