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Paper short abstract:

Through the privileged lens of food, we will see how the fragility of migrants’ informal encampments is converted into channels of communication, experiences of horizontal solidarity, and ways of displaying imagination and agency

Paper long abstract:

Doing food-related fieldwork in turbulent times (such as the pandemic) and fragile settings (such as migrants’ urban encampments) is certainly a challenge. Some associations and politically engaged activists as well as some committed social scientists have accepted the challenge without fear of showing their mutual fragility in situations that have to be handled with care. Through the privileged lens of food such fragility is converted into a channel of communication, experiences of horizontal solidarity, and ways of displaying imagination and agency. The context of our research is represented by a series of informal settlements in the cities of Rome and Ventimiglia that we have followed over a prolonged period of time and where forced migrants have found provisionary shelter. The perspective of our research in such contexts of displacement is on the symbolic dimension, which privileges the relational and creative aspect rather than the dimension of food security and the nutrition variable. In term of methodology, our participatory observation is accompanied by a collection of narratives and images, which draw from memory and rely on digital media