Duck & Diaspora

Peer-Reviewed Academic Article

Duck & diaspora: eating dialectically in a settler-colonial food system.

Journal of Food, Culture & Society, January 2023

Duck & Diaspora contributes to our understanding of how foodways & communities are impacted by the ongoing legacies of settler-colonialism. Data for this project was collected from 2018 to 2022.

A long-running collaboration with Ph.D. Candidate Koby Song-Nichols, this academic project aimed to discuss complex community relationships by examining a singular food item & its connections to diasporic placemaking efforts in the Canadian context. We ask what it means to eat this food & participate in these relationships.

Our findings show that Chinese communities in Toronto have created methods to acknowledge or obscure the complicated histories, pasts, & presents that are embedded in local food systems. These findings indicate the need to create new narratives, techniques, & perspectives on diasporic placemaking to address relationship-building with Indigenous communities & each other.

Deliverables:

2018 Agro-Ecological Prospect Conference Presentation (ASFS / CAFS / AFHVS)
2019 Submission to Gastronomica
2021 Food Matters & Materialities Conference Presentation + Interview
2023 Published in the Journal of Food, Culture, & Society

Abstract:

What can Pekin duck tell us about diaspora and settler colonialism?

In this paper we answer this question by introducing “eating dialectically,” inspired by community activist Grace Lee Bogg’s understandings of “thinking dialectically” and her challenge for us to “grow our souls” in the context of many crises we continually face. We focus on how Pekin duck is consumed and produced within the Greater Toronto Area.

This piece offers three duck meals to ruminate on often ignored connections between diasporic foodways in multicultural cities and the rural areas that provide them ingredients. We present and troubleshoot a practice of “eating dialectically” which aims not only to raise critical food consciousness but also push us all to reimagine ourselves, our futures, and the foods that feed our souls anew. We conclude by briefly discussing the limitations of eating dialectically and our abilities to reimagine ourselves and our food futures.

To cite this article:

Koby Song-Nichols & Katie Konstantopoulos (2023) Duck & diaspora: eating dialectically in a settler-colonial food system, Food, Culture & Society, DOI: 10.1080/15528014.2023.2169503