Paper short abstract:

This presentation describes the politics of food and hospitality in (emergency) reception centres in Belgium, by drawing upon ethnographic data on Syrian refugees.

Paper long abstract:

While eating practices fulfil a central role in expressing collective identities, they potentially turn into sites of contention when individuals are forced to migrate. By drawing upon semi-structured interviews and informal observations with Syrian refugees in Belgium, this article describes the politics of food and hospitality through which wider socio-political subjectivities are renegotiated. More precisely, I argue that three sets of meanings are crucial to understand the symbolic importance of food and hospitality, and the conditions under which it feeds into a series of micro-political struggles: a) the power-infused relations between hosting and being hosted or between giving and receiving; b) a sense of individual autonomy and dignity; and c) the revitalisation of collective selves. By putting these three sets of meanings into practice, Syrian refugees create intimate bubbles of homeliness that are often subversive to the hostile environment in which they find themselves.