Abstract
This paper critically examines culinary spaces in Palestine and Israel (and their diasporas) as sites of reimagining national, local and global identities –both as spaces that reflect power disparities and as expressions of territorial connection, food practices, diaspora, and migration. We approach this topic through on-site visits and interviews we conducted between 2019 and the spring of 2023. In Israeli culinary spaces in Tel Aviv and Philadelphia, we interviewed chefs and culinary curators engaged in reconfiguring the parameters of Israeli cuisine for local and global consumption, while attempting to embrace multiculturalism. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, we interviewed Palestinian culinary artisans who reinscribe Palestinian heritage through food even though Israeli-imposed restrictions, the separation barrier, and escalating land dispossession and physical violence threaten their culinary businesses. We argue that these personal, familial, and institutional narratives are conflicting yet intertwined: Israeli culinary narratives, with their global-facing multiculturalism, often obscure structural barriers that exclude Palestinians, while imperiled Palestinian culinary businesses in the occupied West Bank practice sumud (perseverance) by navigating the perceived dichotomies of tradition and innovation. Our analysis underscores narratives that assert connections to the land and the urgent need for political recognition and repair. Crucially, this approach does not erase these connections or the land’s histories of dispossession, appropriation, and ethnic violence.
Presenters
Nevine AbrahamAssociate Teaching Professor, Languages, Cultures, and Applied Linguistics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, United States Michal Friedman
Assistant Teaching Professor & Jack Buncher Professor of Jewish Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Food politics, Palestinian, Israeli, Food Cultures
