A aculturação alimentar do consumidor sírio: uma abordagem evolucionista

Abstract

Because of the Syrian war that has begun in 2011, a growing immigration flux to Brazil has started. By addressing an Evolutionary Psychology perspective, this work investigated the food consumption of Syrian refugees living in Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais. In order to identify common consumption behaviors that take place in immigrants’ acculturation process, a systematic review of studies that have approached the acculturation consumption theme published between 2014 and 2018 was conducted. The results of this first effort pointed to a concentration of interests regarding food consumption, which defined the focus of this work. Three food categories were identified: food from the home country, food from the host country and global food. The descriptions of behaviors related to the consumption of these categories were analyzed by the reverse engineering method. The analyses resulted in hypotheses regarding the evolutionary motives that might drive this kind of consumption. To support these hypotheses, an empirical research was conducted with a group of Syrian refugees living in Belo Horizonte. Aiming to investigate the motives that drive the consumption of the categories identified in the systematic review, this work used the laddering technique. A new level corresponding to the evolutionary motives was added to the structure of laddering. It was found that Syrians food consumption is driven by final aims related to affiliation, fear, disgust, comfort, nurture and curiosity. The empirical work supported some of the hypotheses proposed by the systematic review. The main contributions of this work resides in proposing a dialog between consumers acculturation and evolutionary themes, besides of proposing the use of the laddering technique to investigate evolutionary motives.