About
PhD Project “#Somosoquecomemos – Food Cultures in the Diaspora: Transits, Flows and Interfaces”
Reference: 2022.11627.BD
Scientific area: Sociology
Supervisor: Paula Guerra (IS-UP); Co-supervisor: Kadma Marques (PPG-UECE); Co-supervisor: Armando Malheiro (CITCEM)
Timetable: February 2023-January 2027
Abstract: The project “Food Cultures in the Diaspora: Transits, Flows and Interfaces” focuses on the perception/understanding/communication of a shared cultural food heritage between northern Portugal and northeastern Brazil (especially Ceará) from the mid-20th century to the present. The approach will be transdisciplinary (bringing together communication, history, anthropology and sociology) and multi-sited, based on an understanding of the social/geographical history of flavours/practices/identities, made up of taste references, and translocal sense of belonging in the diaspora. We have considered gastronomy as a marker of contemporary identity/a form of relational knowledge, in the sense that the act of eating transcends the natural/intuitive, as it emphasises/emerges from the social field and takes on a mediating role between subjects/cultures and contexts/lives. Using a case study methodology based on ethnographic drift, we will situate gastronomy as an identity mediator, as the sharing of (diasporic) knowledge/practices constitutes a historical web of understandings of experientialities/quotidianities and cultural hybridisms. We will focus on the convergences/differences between the two cultures and propose two sound/image/ taste routes in both identity spaces.
End beneficiaries/target population: The academic community and the general public, in particular professionals and researchers in related fields.
