Paper short abstract:

In this paper I present the fieldwork that I have done in 2009 with an environmental activist group based in Lisbon, Portugal.

Paper long abstract:

During the fieldwork - 4 months of participant observation - I have studied the Jantar Popular (JP), literally the people's dinner, that GAIA - Grupo de Acção e Intervenção Ambiental, an environmental NGO, facilitates every Thursday of the week, except for August.

The dinner is vegan, made with organic, gmo-free, locally produced and socially just ingredients. Facilitated by GAIA, this dinner is completely organized by volunteers, from planning the menu to cleaning up the space(s) at the end of the evening: without volunteers there would be no dinner.

During the JP the eater is connected through food with the other eaters. Thus, commensality becomes an ideal tool for activism, putting environmental food politics into practice through 'just' eating in common. At the same time, the JP becomes a Temporary Vegan Zone (TVZ), as it creates an opportunity for people to transcend their everyday experience of food.

Being in the TVZ, is an opportunity to think and talk with other people with every bite that is taken. At the same time one is temporarily free from corporate food oppression.