Food resignification practices among refugees at the margins of Rome

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe aim of our article is to explore the meaning of food for refugees and volunteers settled in emergency contexts in the city of Rome. We will look at ways in which refugees rephrase their experience with food in its symbolic dimensions expressed in norms, classifications, tastes while living in a context of accidental communities and uncertainty. In this study, we will rely on the observation of food practices of refugees and on the collection of narratives – also through the technique of photo elicitation – of privileged witnesses in urban encampments. Referring to seminal works on the cultural symbolic aspect of food (Mintz 1996; Montanari 2006; Rocillo-Aquino et al. 2021) and to ways of food preparation and consumption in unfamiliar cultural settings , our study will contribute to a better understanding of food systems in the dynamic milieu of forced migration, especially referring to emergency settings and other crisis situations (like the pandemic period). Ethnographic data lead us to consider the following questions: which features characterize food in such contexts of uncertainty? Which practices connected to food are performed and what do the narratives of refugees and volunteers tell us about the sense of food experienced? In brief, how is food re-signified in these emergency contexts?KEYWORDS: Food resignification practicesrefugeesurban encampments Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. This essay is the result of collegial work, and collegial writing process. However, Palutan is mainly responsible for the following sections: Migrants, Refugees and Food Systems. A theoretical rationale; The tiles of an incomplete mosaic. Methodological notes; Re-invented Food; Healing Food. Schmidt is mainly responsible for the following sections: Introduction, The ethnographic research. From emergency food to domesticated food; Bread and Injera; Spices; Safe Food; Food in a Zero-waste Circuit; Concluding Remarks.2. In our article we adopt the term refugees to include all migrants forced to leave their countries – migrants in-transit, asylum seekers, holders of the refugee status or of the subsidiary protection and environmental migrants – to seek freedom and a future elsewhere.3. Baobab activists are a heterogeneous group of people in terms of occupation, age, education, and nationality who share a strong civic commitment. Other subjects – such as associations, parishes, restaurants and bakery owners as well as private citizens – have joined the Baobab spirit and its bottom-up model of hospitality (see Schmidt and Palutan Citation2021).4. In this paper we will make specific mention to other context of our research explored in other venues.5. Works worthy of mention include the following essays: Dharod et al., that look at Somali refugees in a US resettlement program (Dharod et al. Citation2011); Trapp analyses the food changes of sub-Saharan African refugees in a US nutrition program in terms of consumption of sugars and carbonated drinks in alignment with American trends (Trapp Citation2010); Simon Turner considers the impact of food distribution on the social organization in a refugee camp in Tanzania (Turner Citation2004); Kinyua looks at the impact of food distribution vis à vis the role of women in a Kenyan refugee camp (Kinyua Citation2005); finally, Kavian reflects on Afghan refugee women who settled in Adelaide (Kavian et al. Citation2020).6. The collaborative project Food2Gather. Exploring foodscapes as public spaces for integration was granted a HERA Joint Research Programme in 2019. The Italian team, in which the authors were respectively Post doc researcher and Principal Investigator, focused on ways and processes where food was re-signified in the diverse times and spaces of migration that ranged from informal encampments, and reception centers, to successful entrepreneurships.7. The study’s contexts encompass a series of informal locations – which include Piazzale Maslax and Piazzale Spadolini – where find provisionary shelter refugees of different typologies. In Piazzale Maslax, a parking lot owned by the State Railways, refugees had the possibility to cook and share meals, beside receiving food from volunteer organizations. The majority were men coming from Eritrea, Sud Sudan, Ethiopia, Gambia, Senegal. The camp has been evacuated at the end of 2018. Piazzale Spadolini, just outside the Tiburtina railway station, was characterized by maximum precarity: refugees were allowed only to spend the night in their sleeping bags under a canopy near an out-of-use entrance to the station; activists could bring over hot meals but cooking meals there was not possible. The camp has been evacuated in 2020.8. The introduction of photographs as an integral part of the interview dates back to Collier that has explored their role of activators of memories and emotions: “The imagery opened doors of memory and released emotions about forgotten circumstances” (see Collier Citation1957, 853), being photographs “a tool through which participants could share their knowledge and through which intense feeling and truths could be realized and shared” (Richard and Lahman Citation2015, 5).9. The majority of people living in the camps are migrants in-transit from the Horn of Africa, heading to central European countries and asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa in different stages of their application process.10. Baobab activists, some of whom were asylum seekers themselves, have a horizontal approach to hospitality, with the major goal being to foster human relations in sharing food (See Schmidt and Palutan Citation2018).11. Injera is the fermented Ethiopian traditional staple food prepared usually from teff flour with a preparation which is time-consuming and requires “technical knowledge and experience in fermentation and preparing dough” (Sabar and Posner Citation2013, 212). As a traditional meal, injera is the communal plate vehicle of relationship, closeness and friendship; celebrates national and religious festivities, family gatherings and ceremonies; during the fasting periods – that strictly follow a vegan diet - injera is consumed with wot prepared by the lentils called shiro along with different boiled vegetables and pasta (Neela and Fanta Citation2020; Reminick Citation2020).12. Montanari stresses the symbolic valence of bread in the Mediterranean region: “Bread does not exist in nature and only man knows how to make it, the fruit of long experiments and thoughtful reflection. […] Bread therefore symbolizes man’s exit from the animal kingdom and the establishment of “civilization:” in this sense “bread eaters” are synonymous with “men” in the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey (Montanari Citation2006, 6). On bread, which has the merit of being both nourishment and symbol, much has been written. For instance, see the collection of essay edited by Oddone Longo and Paolo Scarpi Homo Edens 4, (Citation1989); the book by Piercarlo Grimaldi Cibo e rito (Citation2012); the book by Lucia Galasso Storia e Civiltà del Pane, (Citation2022).13. The English translation purposely maintains the structure of the Italian spoken by the interviewees.14. Surah 6, Al ‘Anam (Cattle).15. On the theme of halal food (word that signifies ’pure food’ following proper Islamic practices such as ritual slaughtering and pork avoidance) literature is wide. For instance, in the context of French migration, see (Bonne et al. Citation2007); for Belgium see (Bonne and Verbeke Citation2008); for Turkish migrants living in Germany, see (Sherwani et al. Citation2018). We like to quote “What is migrants’ food all about?” by (Razy et al. Citation2021) since it is the result of the above mentioned HERA collaborative project Food2Gather.16. In the words of Laurette is visible the process of resignification of food practices which undergo changes and innovations when coming in touch with food habits of the host country. We like to mention the work by Crenn et al. on permanence and changes in food habits among migrants that is explored with the particular focus on their return to the country of departure for vacation or retirement: in this article the concept of “eating well” is especially tackled by the authors (Crenn, Delavigne, and Téchoueyres Citation2010).17. The idea of care resurfaces in other contexts of hospitality objects of our research. As Laurette once again pointed out: “I want them to feel at home. When they return to their room to sleep, if they do not eat well, thoughts can easily fill their mind at night … But when the things you eat are good, then things go better. […] Community life is not easy. Everyone has his/her own character, but in the end, when at the table with the food, we have to do our best to be there together and eat well” (Interview, February 2022).18. See L’etranger qui vient by Michel (Agier Citation2018; Rozakou Citation2017).19. On the comparison between wet/dry food see, for instance Elsa Mescoli on food practices among Moroccan families in Milan, Italy. The author comments the words of Nabila, a Moroccan woman living in Italy: ”[…] I also cook Moroccan, [but] we are all Italian now, because my children only like dry stuff” [Nabila, recorded on 18 May 2011]. According to Nabila, ‘dry’ was the characteristic that best applied to Italian food preparations, as opposed to Moroccan dishes that are ‘wet’ because they are often covered in sauce” (Mescoli Citation2019).20. Okra, also known as gombo, it is an annual tropical herb cultivated for its edible green seed pod. As a vegetable, it may be prepared like asparagus sautéed, or pickled, as an ingredient for stews. The large amount of mucilage (gelatinous substance) makes it useful as a thickener for broths and soups.21. Part of the Food2Gather Italian team conducted research on the culinary experience of Peace & Spice, a restaurant located in Padua and on the culinary experience of Orient Experience II, a restaurant located in the heart of Venice. Both restaurants are run by Afghan refugees.22. A group of volunteers from all over the world, both locals and refugees, moved to the Esquilino market – the biggest multicultural market in Rome- collecting and distributing around 800 kg of food weekly. Programmes like these are supported by the institutional municipal framework named “Rome does not waste” (Roma non spreca) which is intended to recover food surpluses to be used for solidarity projects.23. Here it could be observed the need for refugees of recognizing food that does not harm, telling us of dynamics of trust, mistrust and uncertainty.24. As stated in the theoretical review, Mary Douglas holds that there is a food system of reference in which changing an element could change the system on the whole. It might be true, however we should always remind that what we observed in our research were just fragments of this system which, as a whole, was not accessible to us.