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Paper short abstract

Based on ethnographic fieldwork (participant observation, conversations), the paper depicts 3 food representation strategies of migrant communities in Poland such as culinary workshops, Georgian restaurants, and mutual cooking in refugee centres. It elaborates on power relations and integration.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines three food representation strategies employed by migrant communities in Poland and analyses their role in shaping integration, visibility, and power relations between migrants and the receiving society. Drawing on the anthropology of food, culinary practices are approached not merely as cultural expression but as social strategies embedded in unequal structures of perception and belonging.

The first strategy concerns culinary workshops aimed at Polish audiences, often led by Venezuelan and Colombian migrants. Organised by NGOs or individual entrepreneurs, these workshops translate and simplify culinary narratives to enhance accessibility and appeal. While they create spaces for intercultural encounter and economic agency, they also risk reducing complex food traditions and migration histories to pedagogical and consumable performances aligned with majority expectations.

The second strategy focuses on Georgian migrant gastronomy, which often maximises Polish imaginaries of Georgia as hospitable, Christian, exotic yet non-threatening. These restaurants tend to reinforce the exotisation of Georgian culture as a touristic experience rather than reflecting Georgia’s position as a major sending country to Poland.

The third strategy involves mutual cooking practices in refugee centres, where asylum seekers cook together as a form of care, solidarity, and survival. Typically inward-facing and occasionally supported by NGOs, these practices rely on minimal shared language, positioning food as a primary medium of communication rather than public representation.

The paper asks which of these strategies effectively bridge social divides and reduce polarisation toward migrants in Poland, and how they differently enable or constrain integration.