Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on life-story interviews with members of selected food activist groups in Istanbul, exploring the dynamics between utopias of food-sharing and production and their mediation in daily practice.

Paper long abstract:

Food-based activism in Istanbul has diversified, adapting global initiatives to address a range of local social and economic justice issues. This paper draws on life-story interviews with members of selected food activist groups and explores the dynamics between utopias of food-sharing and production, and the ways these are mediated in daily practice. Urban groups in Istanbul such as Migrant Kitchen and Komşu Cafe Collective, or Food not Bombs, perform horizontality over stratification, gift practices over market exchange, frugality over waste, and raise awareness of migrant and refugee groups. Another cateogry of food activism involves what I will call "meal events," such as the Yeryüzü Sofraları (Earth Tables), Street-long Iftar meals at Ramadan, launched by the Anticapitalist Muslims to critique what they perceive are the wasteful meal events organized by those with wealth and power. Each group invokes and makes visible particular food practices, labor processes and social relationships. In their emphasis on the "community dimensions" and labor of food production, group members invoke traditional pasts, social justice, and moral economies, while critiquing conspicuous consumption, mystified food systems and unjust political systems.