Emblematic fruit: Mapping aguaje palm fruit vendors during Covid-19 in Iquitos, Peru

In Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon and the largest city in the world that cannot be reached by car, the aguaje (Mauritia flexuosa) palm fruit reigns supreme. Aguaje consumption is considered an integral part of Amazonian identity, to the extent that “si no comes aguaje, no eres amazonico (if you don’t eat aguaje, you’re not Amazonian)”. With modest estimates of aguaje consumption averaging 25 metric tonnes per person per year in Iquitos, the aguaje is a foodstuff of unparalleled social and economic significance.

This chapter focuses on the street vendors of aguaje, a group largely composed of women known as aguajeras and aguajineras. Aguaje street vendors are a fixture in the Iquitos landscape but whose contributions remain understudied and underappreciated. Drawing on primary data collected from surveys, interviews, and ethnographic research such as participant observation, this research utilises photographs and maps to engage in “testimony mapping” to draw attention to the intricate knowledge and labour of aguaje street vendors in handling a notoriously difficult fruit. During Covid-19, aguaje street vendors’ hypervisibility in urban spaces made them an ideal target for policy intervention, and as such this chapter also examines the state government’s attempts to formalise aguaje street vending through the Project Aguaje scheme. The chapter also discusses the aguaje trade as a mechanism for livelihood strategies more generally as well as during the coronavirus pandemic.