Food hospitality and the negotiation of subjectivities through meals in the context of migration: case studies from Belgium

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the ways in which food enables undocumented migrants to find a place in the context of forced displacement, transit mobility and unstable settlement. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected within the framework of two research projects studying different forms of mobilization involving undocumented migrants in Belgium. In both fieldworks, hospitality dynamics were observed to develop through food. In one case, undocumented migrants hosted by Belgian citizens cooked meals to thank them for their hospitality as well as to eat something they like and to regain some power of action in their everyday life. In the other case, a group of undocumented migrant women living in a collective housing prepared “African food” for Belgian people to create spaces of intercultural encounter, to sensitize to the cause of undocumented people and to gain some money. Relying on the literature on food and hospitality crossed with migration (and gender) issues, and focusing on the relationship between hosts and guests, we aim at highlighting how migrants’ subjectivities and agency are negotiated through food practices in different hospitality situations involving undocumented migrants and local people.KEYWORDS: Foodhospitalitymigrationsubjectivityagency Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Ethics disclaimerAll participants in this research have been informed of its aims and content and have been assured that the information shared will remain anonymous. Consultation with the university ethics department was not mandatory for the research concerned by the data reported in this article.Notes1. Throughout our article, we will use the category of “undocumented migrants” to name individuals whose (absence of) formal residence status is the result of “socio-political processes of illegalization” and of “a legal production of migrant illegality” (de Genova Citation2002, 429). More specifically in our case studies, as we will see in more detail later, these are people who failed in obtaining their residence permit, or who did not apply for it because they were “in transit” in Belgium to reach another destination.2. Details will follow.3. We understand subjectivity as the “[…] manifold ways in which individuals understand themselves in relation to others and experience their lives,” and agency as the practices exercised to define and realize subjectivity, also countering “certain limits imposed by the culture in which an individual lives, including power relations, social institutions and hegemonic discourses” (Lupton Citation1996, 13).4. See https://www.lesoir.be/art/996994/article/actualite/regions/bruxelles/2015-09-23/parc-maximilien-un-enjeu-politique-nationale, accessed on 25/6/2022.5. The related data have been collected under the framework of the master’s thesis of one of the authors (Clarebout Citation2020). The research activities for this study lasted 15 months, from April 2019 to July 2020. They consisted of approximately 20 participant observations (at Maximilian Park; at hosts’ homes; collective hosting), 15 recorded semi-structured interviews with hosts, and a dozen informal conversations with guests.6. https://fr-fr.facebook.com/vspliege/, accessed on 7/4/2022. The group has nearly one hundred active members, plus another two hundred registered with the collective.7. This expression which has no equivalent in English and is often used as such, refers to a type of restaurant service where a fixed menu is offered to guests at a communal table, usually in a bed and breakfast or a small restaurant. Guests are seated together, often with the hosts, which promotes socialization and a sense of community.8. PUMOMIG – Public opinion, mobilizations and policies concerning asylum seekers and refugees in anti- immigrants times (Europe and Belgium), project funded by BELSPO – Belgian Federal Science Policy Office, coordinated by the Université Libre de Bruxelles and carried out in partnership with the Université de Liège and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The overall fieldwork activity conducted within the framework of this project lasted around 18 months and included 67 interviews and 43 activities of participant observation carried out in Liège.9. The profiles of both hosts and guests, in terms of age, gender, social class, level of education, origin of migrants, etc. are very diverse. However, as far as hosts are concerned, the research primarily involved mainly women of different social class, either mothers in a traditional family units, or single women. As for migrants, they were in their twenties or thirties, mostly young men. They came mostly from countries in East Africa, North Africa or the Middle East.10. Translated from French.11. All names in the document are fictitious, for reasons of anonymity.12. Lalibela is an Ethiopian city. The Ethiopians hosted by this Belgian family were all originally from the area of this town. They systematically came back to rest with the same Belgian family and renamed the whole family after their town.13. See Hamood (Citation2006).14. The reference was to the opposition to the creation of a new building to house the local court and contrast with the architectural image of the area, characterized by small houses.15. Roselle juice.