Paper short abstract:

The paper seeks to explore how diasporic migrant identities are informed by gardening and food cultivation in allotments. It considers the meanings of cultivation, food, body and self, as well as the implications of allotment gardening for the physical and emotional wellbeing of migrant families.

Paper long abstract:

The paper seeks to explore how diasporic migrant identities are informed by spatial practices and memories of traditions through gardening and food cultivation in a Northern UK city. Often understood to denote a preceding process of migration or movement, "diaspora" is used here to also include second generations of migrants who have self-identified links and identification with "host country" and "country of origin". Thus, the project seeks to document, trace and challenge familial histories of movement and settling and the ways in which present subjectivities are constituted through memories of food consumption and production and as well as through current spatial practices around cultivation. In using allotments to "grow foods from home" alongside locally established vegetables migrant families construct hybrid cultural practices in the context of semi-public spaces that allotments provide. Considering the meanings of cultivation, foods, body and self, the paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach to investigate how subjectivities and identities are constructed in relation to food production as well as food consumption and it has a central interest in how allotment gardening practices contribute to physical and emotional wellbeing of migrant families. The paper also touches upon the role of food and its cultivation within wider social networks of migrants and how tradition and cultures are upheld and dispersed through food cultivation.