Mat og motmakt

Abstract

The article offers interpretations of food and bodily conduct in contested spaces of hospitality in Oslo. I propose that ways in which food is rejected, received or negotiated may reveal counter-embodiments in unexpected situations. I base this proposal on participant observations conducted in two locations in Oslo between 2017 and 2019: a diaconal soup kitchen offering free food to poor migrants, and the dense, urban area known as Grønland. Looking through the meal lens, food is elevated as a symbol of hospitality, of embodiment and belonging. However, food also appears at a distance, as unanswerable, potentially and paradoxically, disembodying. The article presents three excerpts from ethnographic fieldwork, each involving food and bodies in different spaces. Discussing how to interpret these excerpts, I also draw critical attention to the involvement and affectedness of the research subject as part of the conduct/counter-conduct framework. From interpretations of these excerpts, it seems that counter-conduct may also appear as an intimate, embodied negotiation. The methodology guiding the article promotes a sensing, vulnerable presence as key to discovering and being affected by the vulnerability already present in empirical proximities. The discussion develops from the empirical material, in dialogue with among others Sara Ahmed and Engin Isin, and reveals how attention to embodied contradictions appear central to the discoveries of counter-conducts in contemporary precarity.