Eating the Asian Other? Pedagogies of Food Multiculturalism in Australia

Abstract

Public pedagogies in tourism and education in Australia suggest that food is a medium through which we learn more about each other’s cultures: in other words food is a pedagogy of multiculturalism. Drawing on a white Anglo Australian man’s memories of food in different intercultural encounters, this paper prises open the concept of eating the Other. There has been trenchant critique of food multiculturalism and the consuming cosmopolitan in Australia (Hage 1997; Probyn 2004; Duruz 2010). Thus, several writers critique the prevailing idea that eating ethnic food is a sign of cosmopolitanism, and even anti-racism, in individuals and cities in Australia (Hage 1997; Sheridan 2002; Duruz 2010). Hence, the notion of eating the Other has been taken up to discuss how ethnicity becomes an object of enrichment for white people through the eating of ethnic food in restaurants (Hage 1997) and cooking ethnic food at home (Heldke 2003). 
 
 In this paper we present an ‘entangled’ story of Frank which includes white expatriate masculinity, multiculturalism with ethnics and what Heldke calls ‘colonial food adventuring’. Drawing on a close reading of Frank’s story, we argue that an evaluation of food multiculturalism needs to historicise, gender and racialise inter-cultural food encounters. Thus, we argue that there are ethnic food socialities other than those of home-building or restaurant multiculturalisms. We suggest that culturalist and political economy pedagogies of food multiculturalism could be augmented by one that attends to the production of whiteness and gender.

Feasting on Culture and Identity: Food Functions in a Multicultural and Transcultural Malaysia

“…As a result of centuries and decades of cooking and "eating the other", Malaysians in general, have developed a rather sophisticated palate (Hook 1992). Therefore, through these culinary cultural exchanges, the typical meal in a Malaysian household of any ethnicity has become hybrid and multi-cuisine in nature and as such embodies a form of cultural appropriation and "everyday multiculturalism" common in Malaysia (Flowers & Swan 2012).…”

Seeing benevolently: Representational politics and digital race formation on ethnic food tour webpages

“…Our paper extends our argument elsewhere that the specificities of Othering matter (Flowers and Swan 2012). Hence, on Taste-Tours, racialised femininity is mobilised to touristify a region and to counter racism about that region.…”

“…As we argue elsewhere, Othering works in highly specific ways depending on a range of relations, histories and contexts (Flowers and Swan, 2012). Research on ethnic neighbourhood tourism as urban regeneration reveals how particular forms of Othering are used to produce 'touristified' ethnic suburbs.…”

“…As we argue elsewhere, it is important when discussing the project of eating the Other to examine who is eating what Other through which Othering processes (Flowers and Swan 2012). TasteTours' webpages offer a sanitised image of the Other with sufficient difference to seem enticing through the possibility of eating nice treats, and non-threatening in its Othering of the Arab Muslim as a women tied to tradition and the home.…”

Metrolingualism

“…The middle-class area where the complex is located is one of cosmopolitan rather than domestic multiculturalism (Hage, 1997), where 'eating the other' (Flowers & Swan, 2012) and sampling different cuisines is common. In a northern suburb of Sydney, the networks in and beyond the (33-year-old) shopping plaza where the Japanese cucumbers turned up, follow a variety of lines of affi liation.…”