Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the role of relations of ownership as belonging generated by food that are recognized/disputed, and appropriated as rights of possession, in imagining Bangladesh.

Paper long abstract:

Food elicits myriad forms of imagining Bangladesh. This paper focuses on the role of relations of ownership as belonging generated by food that are recognized/disputed, and appropriated as rights of possession, in imagining Bangladesh. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Dhaka, Calcutta, and London, it examines the dynamics of such imaginings emergent in the claims of ownership of the creative performance of "authentic" Bengali food. In so doing, it reflects on understandings of ownership and creativity when diverse norms seek to regulate it.