Paper short abstract:

The migration from a country to another includes different changes such as food, taste, the way of cooking and eating. In the case of children and their family in asylum-seeking situation, how do the changes in food taste affect their experience of migration, belonging, and integration?

Paper long abstract:

My doctoral research questions the role and place of food in the daily life of children and their family in asylum-seeking situation. Based on ongoing fieldwork at a Red Cross reception center and at an elementary school in the Province of Liège (Belgium), this paper aims to describe and analyze the food sensitive experiences of families and more particularly of children, through transformation or, on the contrary, the upholding of taste habits in a migratory context.

The - positive or negative - taste experience has a core place in the discourses on food in the field. Coming from various countries, socialized where references are quite different from those existing in the Belgian society, families in asylum-seeking situation (adults and children) often have difficulties adapting to the food provided at the reception center, which forms the basis of their daily diet, and which is organized according to the practices, values and norms in use in Belgium. In fact, the changes in taste, practices and eating habits, are sometimes substantial between the origin society and the host society.

In this context, the children diet crystallizes many issues, discrepancies and tensions around some topics such as the transmission of values and food experiences, the education of taste, and the changes of food practices. How can the transformative power of taste affect the belonging feeling and identities in the case of refugee children and their family? How can changes in taste influence the experience of migrants?