Taste diaspora: The aesthetic and material practice of belonging

Savaş, Özlem

doi:10.1177/1359183514521922

Cited by 27 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Ethnic stores produce what Savaş calls "taste diasporas" or, as Everts explains, "assemblages of memories; memories that refer not necessarily to lived experiences but an imagined past. " 45 Practice and engagement within these spaces produce ethnicity-a symbolic interactionist logic that argues that acting is being, engaging with the grocery store produces ethnic subjects, walking through a building reproduces ethnic identity, and eating certain kinds of food connect people to their ethnic roots.…”

Section: Spatial Imaginaries Of Shopping In a Fish Storementioning

confidence: 99%

Food, place, and memory: Bangladeshi fish stores on Devon Avenue, Chicago

Sen

2016

Food and Foodways

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This article explores the importance of food in the production of immigrant identity and placemaking in Chicago. The Bangladeshi fish stores located on Devon Avenue, Chicago, serve the unique culinary needs of immigrants from Bangladesh and Bengalispeaking regions of India. Based on interviews with store owners and customers and architectural analyses of these stores, this research explores how everyday engagements with food, specifically fish harvested in the delta region of Bangladesh, trigger cultural memories and reproduce particular forms of shopping practices and place identities among this relatively less-studied group of South Asian immigrants. This case study suggests that immigrant world-making is Janus-faced: simultaneously looking back and remembering the past while adapting to the present and reconstituting hybrid places in both societies of origin and settlement. An examination of this tension between past and present, near and far, local and global shows how diverse material contexts influence the way we interpret and invoke food memories. By tracing the trajectory of fish, this article demonstrates that food defines a variety of immigrant places-retail streets and grocery store aisles-as well as larger ecologies and spatial imaginaries, otherwise invisible in the studies of immigrant architecture.Place is a local and tangible concept. Descriptions of place speak a language of anchored stability of location as well as meaning. However, when we examine the world of immigrants, the term "place" ceases to remain local, permanent, anchored or stable. 1 Immigrants travel to and settle down in multiple locations, often separated by physical, cultural, and temporal distances. They carry place-based memories with them and place becomes a mnemonic device in the remaking of diasporic geographies. 2 These mental and symbolic conceptions of place, or spatial imaginaries, are produced during everyday lived experiences, perceptions, and interactions. 3 Spatial imaginaries are fundamental strategies of immigrant world-making and, as geographers Cook and Crang argue, "displaced materials and practices, inhabiting many times and spaces which, far from being neatly bounded, bleed into and mutually constitute each other. " 4 Much has been written about immigrant geographies

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Section: Spatial Imaginaries Of Shopping In a Fish Storementioning

confidence: 99%

Food, place, and memory: Bangladeshi fish stores on Devon Avenue, Chicago

Sen

2016

Food and Foodways

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“…The outlined dimensions of homes and material culture have been widely explored in recent studies of migrant communities and cultures (Mehta, Belk, 1991;Miller, 2008;Savas, 2014;Svasek, 2012). Migrant communities present interesting cases for studying domestic cultures, as their homes "move" with them, both geographically and symbolically.…”

Section: Researching Homes and Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

the Russian Diasporic Home and Its Atmospheres: Theoretical Challenges and the Methodological Implications

Печурина¹

2016

RSR

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This article discusses the theoretical and methodological challenges in the qualitative research of Russian diasporic homes. Its key argument is that a sense of ethnic atmosphere and domestic aesthetics is co-created by the researcher and the participant through their shared perceptions of place in a process that has both advantages and limitations. Specifically, the article looks into the idea of "Russianness, " which is defined as a collection of material and sensory elements that make one feel "at home. " More importantly, this feeling of being "at (a Russian) home" and the atmospheres related to it can not only be experienced by those who live there, but also by its visitors who intuitively recognize the elements and objects of decor, and the domestic environment as being part of Russian culture. The interview situation helps to both reveal and to limit the meanings of the objects and of the stories which then constitute part of the existing atmosphere. Using examples from the previous study of Russian migrants' homes and complemented by the researcher's self-reflection, this article will explore the problematic nature of sensory dimension of home, and the challenges in approaching it both theoretically and methodologically. The article's enquiry is aligned with the argument of the importance of combining different ways of learning and knowing in sociological research (Smart, 2011), and aims to engage with the research context more critically and creatively.

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“…Several studies have documented immigrant homemaking in a variety of contexts (Hadjiyanni, , ; Mazumdar & Mazumdar, , , ; Savas, , ; Tolia‐Kelly, , ; Walsh, ). For example, Savas (, p. 185) used the concept of “taste diaspora” to describe “a certain diasporic sphere” formed by Turkish migrants in Vienna, through “collective taste in material objects and enunciated in the aesthetics of everyday.” Tolia‐Kelly () focused on visual cultures, photographs, and artifacts as important aspects of homemaking by South Asians in Britain. These studies claim that immigrants rely on possessions to help reconstruct a sense of identity (e.g., Mehta & Belk, , pp.…”

Section: Introduction: Homes Of Displaced Immigrantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These studies claim that immigrants rely on possessions to help reconstruct a sense of identity (e.g., Mehta & Belk, , pp. 398–400; Savas, ; Tolia‐Kelly, ). For them, “continuity and memories” become “rooted in things —moveable, storable, shippable” (Cooper , p. 100).…”

Section: Introduction: Homes Of Displaced Immigrantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interiors and Homemaking in Displacement: A Study of Vietnamese Americans in Southern California

Mazumdar

2016

Journal of Interior Design

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This paper examines how displaced immigrants create meaningful spaces for themselves in a setting with vastly different customs, values, buildings, and institutions. Through a naturalistic field study, this paper examines in detail the choices, preferences, and decisions made by Vietnamese Americans in Southern California to rebuild their homes and interiors. Salient in their conceptualizations of homemaking were multigenerational family and genealogical linkages with ancestors and extended kin, as well as ritual linkages through worship, food, décor, and spatial requirements. The lessons from this study on homemaking in displacement also reveal the following emergent concepts: home as cultural investment—interior spaces created to facilitate culture specific living, lifestyle, use, activities, and interactions; home as cultural accommodation—spaces modified and transformed to accommodate cultural values and preferences; and home as cultural repository—home as a container for artifacts, paintings, art, and more. All of the above were significant in Vietnamese American homemaking.

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Taste diaspora: The aesthetic and material practice of belonging

Cited by 27 publications

References 48 publications

Food, place, and memory: Bangladeshi fish stores on Devon Avenue, Chicago

Food, place, and memory: Bangladeshi fish stores on Devon Avenue, Chicago

the Russian Diasporic Home and Its Atmospheres: Theoretical Challenges and the Methodological Implications

Interiors and Homemaking in Displacement: A Study of Vietnamese Americans in Southern California

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