Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which (non)belonging is practiced through food and in the context of changing border regimes and transnational practices. Moving beyond the framework of methodological nationalism, I examine (non)belonging within and beyond ethnic, national, and religious categories.

Paper long abstract:

Between 1953 and 1966 from 80,000 to 150,000 Muslims emigrated from communist Yugoslavia to Turkey following the "Independent Migration Agreement" signed between the two presidents: Josip Broz Tito and Adnan Menderes. Although the agreement was signed to enable the reunion of Turkish families, among the migrants were Muslims of different ethnic identifications. The paper explores life trajectories of migrants and their practices of (non)belonging within and beyond ethnic, national, and religious categories and in the context of changing border regimes and transnational practices. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in and between Macedonia and Turkey between 2012 and 2018 this paper scrutinizes "paketčinja" - parcels of foods and other commodities - as polysemic carriers of meanings carried out between family members and close friends across the borders.

Different products and brands sent between dispersed family members become carriers of love and care. As sensory triggers of embodied past they evoke memories and imaginations of home and homeland, of landscape, family and nation, both lived and imagined. Through their engagements with foods migrants challenge existing nation-state borders and 'identity' categories: foods or brands bring back Yugoslavia or evoke memories of childhood and landscape. Whereas some migrants feel 'at home' in Turkey, others constantly negotiate their belonging between 'here' and 'there': between the (non)existing nation-states, rural and urban landscapes, different localities and times. Their practices of (non)belonging include consumption of particular foods or attempts to (re)claim Macedonian citizenship.