Othered food spaces in the Anglophone Caribbean

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to the agri-food discourses on the alterity of food provisioning systems by introducing the concept of othered food spaces. These food spaces serve as coping mechanisms for food provisioning and consumption, developed by marginalised groups either voluntarily or involuntarily in response to systemic discrimination. Utilising qualitative research methods, this study explores othered food spaces in Jamaica through archival research and an ethnographic case study. The data reveal historically rooted othered food spaces, including provision grounds and Maroon food networks, which emerged within the plantation system under British colonial rule. Additionally, the study examines a contemporary example, the House of Dread in Kingston, a food space established by followers of the Rastafarian movement. These food spaces represent alternative food geographies assuming diverse forms with varying rationales under past and present regimes of the global capitalist food system. The findings of this study support critical agri-food scholarship that highlights the diversity and fluidity of alternative food provisioning systems. This research builds upon critical discourses on alternative food geographies by providing evidence of food spaces that depart from normative understandings of what constitutes an alternative food system. In doing so, it expands the discussion to include other stories of alterity beyond the prevailing narratives which centre alternative food geographies primarily as a response to the crises fomented by the industrialisation of food and agriculture in Western food spatialities.