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- Convenors:
-
Joana Lucas
(NOVA FCSH)
Julie Cavignac (Universidade do Rio Grande do Norte)
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- Formats:
- Panels
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 21 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
Numerous heritage-listed foods were initially created to respond to scarcity. At the time of heritagization, social and historical contexts are often forgotten. We propose to promote a debate around the processes of heritagization and confront them with memories, knowledges and practices of scarcity
Long Abstract:
The recognition of food systems as heritage began in 2006 under the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
If there are relatively few food preparations and regional cuisines classified, many of them were originally created to respond to famine and scarcity, such as the "Mediterranean Diet", or food that is made of the less noble parts of animals. This is also the case of some festive foods, such as sardines during the Santo António festivities in Lisbon, or the sweet blood chorizo in the sertão of northeastern Brazil. However, at the time of heritagization, economic situations that corresponded to specific food consumptions are not remembered and there is lack of analysis of social and historical contexts in which they were created.
By placing famine at the center of our concerns, we want to evaluate memories, knowledges and practices of scarcity and to discuss, comparatively and critically, the clashes and consequences of the heritagization of food systems and culinary creations of the working classes.
We will take this opportunity to open the debate on the enhancement of local or "typical" products, which so often refer to a disappearing society from which previous generations had to distance themselves: in an increasingly urbanized world and where traditional production systems are threatened by powerful food industries, who gains with heritagization?
Finally, we will discuss the enhancement of cuisines outside official agencies, and as survival strategies, questioning if, in the end, heritage does not contribute to maintain or produce inequalities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 21 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
Food is na important issue of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Its dimension of knowledge and know-how transmitted from generation to generation, based mainly on oral traditions and centred on cultural and social practices, gives a sense of power, identity and temporary continuity in the communities.
Paper long abstract:
In 2000, the Portuguese Council of Ministers come out with a resolution whose aim is to study and preserve "the recipes of portuguese national traditional cuisine, particularly the cuisine based on autochthonous fauna and Flora as well as local, regional and national products. Also those products manufactured in Portugal and considered of interest from cultural, historical , ethnographical, social or technical point of view, caring out values of memory, ancient, authenticity, singularity or symbolic, should be cherished" (RCM Nº 96/2000). Thus, the law establishes several rules in order to preserve and develop the promotion of a national cuisine as a representative aspect of the portuguese cultural heritage. The process of defining the bases of heritage are an elite construct and a political perspective of what shall be valued in a certain moment in time and in a certain political context. So, territories are political puzzles that show desired and transitional identities, at once cristalized and transformed in time.
Heritage is supplied with a political dimension that is determinant in the gastronomic and alimentary identity, concerning the local, regional and global. Local governance institutions on the other hand, try to encourage the territories under its influence, by the acceptance and /or promoting marketing actions and labels generating local brands that often reinforce identity symbols or (re)invent it. The processes of "touristification" of historical places and city centres are hardly far from these attitudes and as a consequence of these acts the initial intention of preservation turns into degradation.
Paper short abstract:
In the patrimonialisation of Spanish jamón ibérico and the closely linked dehesa landscape, experiences of flagrant social inequality are not reflected. Cultural memory is subordinate to the ham's marketing and today product differentiation contributes to divergent experiences of this cultural good.
Paper long abstract:
Spanish jamón ibérico de bellota is subject to patrimonialisation and marketing efforts on a local and international scale. It is obtained from the Iberian pig, an autochthonous breed associated with the local dehesa landscape. Iberian ham is protected by a national quality norm and the European denominación de origen protegida (D.O.P.). As becomes visible in the local museos del jamón, the landscape's heritagisation is strictly subordinate to the marketing of Iberian ham. While the pig is depicted as the clear protagonist in the dehesa, the latter seems to have been void of humanity. Consequently, present and past human experiences on the dehesa farms are reduced to the labour during the traditional pig slaughtering. This representational gap induces consumers of this cultural heritage to turn a blind eye on the substantial sociocultural dynamics of the dehesa as a cultural and social landscape. Thus, many elderly recall well that the joy of a precious slice of jamón ibérico was far from ubiquitous among the rural population, the majority of which had to live on whatever they found at their doorstep. Failing to consider the flagrant social inequality of semi-feudalism which pervaded the rural south is rejective of any reappraisal of Spain's recent past. What is more, today's differentiation of jamón ibérico into four quality levels continues social distinction as it allows for some to enjoy a premium-quality ham while 80% of the pieces are produced in animal confinement and sold at lower prices, with clear reflection in their nutritional quality.
Paper short abstract:
Despite social progress and public policies, the food heritage of the poor sections of the population continues to be invisible: still today, the culinary preparation of scarcity time, like sweet-blooded chouriço, are now valued with the heritage process, but the knowledge holders are still excluded
Paper long abstract:
In Brazil, the advances achieved during the first decade of the twenty one century, such as the defense of diffuse legal assets, affirmative action programs, or the fight against hunger in synchrony with international political agendas have resulted, in a little less than twenty years, to a new reality for 25 million people who came out of poverty. Others consequences was the promotion of sustainable agriculture and the defense of the environment, the right to healthy food and the promotion of the intangible heritage. However, the promotion of the culture of traditional populations has not always had the expected results. We will take the example of the sweet-blooded chouriço in sertão, a region in the northeastern of Brazil, to demonstrate that despite social progress and public policies, the food heritage of the poor sections of the population continues to be invisible. The sertão, which is a historically poor region, has experienced shortages and prolonged droughts, that has long been ignored by public authorities. Still today, the black cooks prepare the traditional dishes, made with little valued pieces, which are now gourmet and sold to tourists in the state capital of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal. The culinary preparation of times of scarcity are now valued with the heritage process, but the knowledge holders are still excluded.
Paper short abstract:
Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chefchaouen, this paper aims to discuss the processes and discourses mobilized in the requalification of bissara - a broad bean soup - as a strongly traditional food practice, and its consequent transformation into a Mediterranean Diet merchandise
Paper long abstract:
The classification of the Mediterranean Diet as intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO (2010, 2013) initiated, in the territories that served as representative cities for the submitted application, a need to identify and select food products and practices that correspond to the expectations created - locally and nationally - either by the heritage classification itself or by its potential as an additional tourist resource in terms of food and cuisine.
Thus, in localities such as Chefchaouen - the representative city of the Mediterranean Diet in Morocco - we witness the recreation of dishes and recipes perceived as traditional and synonymous with regional identity, in order to be used as a tourist resource in the context of practices and knowledges associated locally with the Mediterranean Diet.
One of the most effectively mobilized food resources has been bissara - a thick soup made from dried broad beans and olive oil. In addition to its transnational dimension - bissara is mainly consumed in Egypt and Palestine - this dish is commonly associated with food scarcity and famine because it is highly protein and made with a small number of ingredients.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chefchaouen, this paper aims to discuss the processes and discourses mobilized in the requalification of bissara as a strongly identitarian and traditional food practice - and its consequent transformation into a Mediterranean Diet merchandise - as well as the way that its consumption history associated with periods of famine and scarcity is (or not) mobilized into the tourist and heritage arena.
Paper short abstract:
The paper seeks to explain how the cultural heritage of experiencing hunger and extreme food scarcity caused by famines along with the processes of political separation in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Northern Ireland established the importance of hunger symbolism and hungerstriking practices for the conflicts around state independence on the political peripheries of Europe.
Paper long abstract:
Using the comparative approach I will be explaining how the cultural memories and practices that emerged during the extreme food scarcity periods and experience of hunger along with the of political separation in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Northern Ireland brought to life the contemporary practices of hunger-striking for political purposes. Many cultural practices that allowed those nations to survive man-made famines have simultaneously allowed to collect important knowledge and created strategies that helped to build a modern nation state. This is visible on the peripheries of Europe where the hunger rhetoric is especially persuasive influencing both: the human imagination and state building processes. This way hunger symbolism legitimizes and raises the importance of adopted political strategies and supports the anti-colonial and liberation movements.
Thus, I am going to argue that the cultural heritage of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Northern Ireland is strongly based on the hunger symbolism which funded the major ideologies of new nation states and supported the anti-colonial and liberation movements. Extreme food scarcity is considered here, from the point of view of ‘new famine thinking’, as failure of accountability. In this approach the politicization of famine is the central point: "famines are related to political regimes. Most twentieth-century famines occurred under authoritarian, unaccountable regimes, colonial administrations, military dictatorship, and one-party states, or during wartime" (Bne Saad, The Global Hunger Crisis, 2013:61).