Consuming Tamil Identity in Paris: Gastro-Cosmopolitanism and "Communitarian Cuisine" in Contemporary France.
Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork with members of the Tamil diaspora in the greater Paris region, I demonstrate the central role of food in expressing and transmitting Tamil ethnic identity through food consumption and culinary practices. I contextualize this within the framework of gas...
| Publicado en: | Gastronomica Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 58 - 70 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of California Press
Spring2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=183605440&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 183605440 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 15293262 UMS jtl: Gastronomica issn: 15293262 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Spring2025 vid: 25 iid: 1 pid: 414 pub: University of California Press artinfo: ui: 183605440 10.1525/gfc.2025.25.1.58 ppf: 58 ppct: 12 formats: tig: atl: Consuming Tamil Identity in Paris: Gastro-Cosmopolitanism and "Communitarian Cuisine" in Contemporary France. aug: au: Berger, Nicole su: Cosmopolitanism Restaurants sug: subj: Full-Service Restaurants All other building equipment contractors Commercial and Institutional Building Construction Cosmopolitanism Restaurants ab: Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork with members of the Tamil diaspora in the greater Paris region, I demonstrate the central role of food in expressing and transmitting Tamil ethnic identity through food consumption and culinary practices. I contextualize this within the framework of gastronationalism, which not only affirms the exceptionalism of French cuisine but also maintains the exclusionary borders of proper (gastro-)citizenship. I argue that maintaining public spaces of Tamil culinary culture in Paris constitutes a gastro-political counter-strategy to dominant French gastronationalism by affirming an ethos of gastro-cosmopolitanism as simultaneously Tamil and Parisian. That is, Tamil gastro-cosmopolitanism offers a way to resist the pressures of assimilation while pushing back against accusations of improper assimilation by valorizing Tamil food as part of Paris' gastro-cosmopolitan foodscape. I situate the gastro-cosmopolitan identity-work of French-Tamils within contemporary French political debates—including the invocation by the French Interior Minister of "communitarian cuisine" as a threat to French national security—and simultaneously in terms of unsettled conceptions of Tamil diasporic identity itself, in which salient divisions—notably along the lines of national and caste-based distinctions—are expressed through diasporic gastro-politics in which food is also a powerful symbolic means of expressing distinctions between Tamil communities in Paris. Through an ethnographic analysis of Tamil gastro-cosmopolitanism in Paris, this article updates understandings of French culinary identity—long grounded in the notions of terroir and haute cuisine—to reflect the diverse reality of foodscapes in contemporary France. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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