Food Practices and Transnational Identities

Abstract

Food has long been understood as a potent marker of cultural identity. In the context of transnational migrant communities, food practices express group and individual identities as well as multiple social positionings within the current environment. At the same time, food practices are part of navigating between local and global attachments. This article examines how food practices in two Punjabi-Canadian families are implicated in identity constructions in the context of transnational migration. In particular, we challenge notions of dietary acculturation, and resistance to acculturation as a form of ethnic identity maintenance, instead exploring how food practices may reflect simultaneous, ongoing attachments to multiple national identities. Participants' food practices reproduced, challenged and reinvented cultural norms, particularly in gender roles concerning food preparation, and the consumption of Punjabi food. Their food practices were products of, as well as tools for the production of, transnational migrant identities.