Food Beyond Sustenance: What Ethnography Reveals About Identity, Migration and Inequality.  

Jonas Darko

Introduction

Food, beyond its fundamental role as a source of nutrient necessary for human survival, occupies a relevant position within social, cultural, economic and political life both in historical and contemporary contexts. Historically, it has functioned as a powerful instrument through which colonial authorities asserted control over colonized populations (Earle, 2012²; Steel & Lowrie, 2024³). Such histories underscore the significance of food not merely as sustenance, but as a medium through which social hierarchies and political control are negotiated. While these historical dynamics of food remain significant, this roundtable shifts to discuss the role of food in present-day contexts. The roundtable draws on ethnographic studies from Ethiopia, Ghana, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States to examine how food operates within diverse sociocultural contexts. It does this by exploring how food mediates economic opportunities, identities, and structures of inequality. 

On focusing on how food mediates economic opportunities, Arianna King (2016) and Ray Krishnendu (2016) are particularly significant. While King (2016) explores how Ghanaian women navigate economic opportunities through food vending within the Ghanaian informal economy, Ray (2016) examines how immigrant communities in the United States use food as a pathway toward economic mobility and social positioning. In discussing how food shapes identity and broader structures of inequality, Ashanté Reese (2019), Lamessa Saka (2024), and Anne Allison (1991) become significantly relevant. Reese (2019) focuses on the daily strategies adopted by Black communities to secure culturally meaningful food, delving into the structural inequalities that hinder Black communities from accessing healthy food. Saka (2024) takes a feminist perspective in documenting the lived experiences of agro-pastoralists, emphasizing the resilient strategies women employ to navigate food security challenges, while Allison (1991) also adopts a feminist approach in discussing how food negotiates identity and broader structures of inequality through the study of lunch boxes in Japan. Finally, on how food operates within the context of migration experiences and identity formation, Helena Tuomainen’s (2009) article highlights how demographic shifts within Ghanaian diaspora communities transformed food from a privately maintained tradition into a publicly displayed marker of cultural identity. 

King, A. (2016). Access to Opportunity: A Case Study of Street Food Vendors and Economic Participation in Ghana. Advances in Gender Research. 22, 65-86.

Street food vending in Northern Ghana⁴

A food vending joint in Ghana⁵

Arianna King explicitly acknowledges her positionality by recognizing that ethnographic research is not neutral, and that the observations presented in her study were shaped by her own interpretations. She reflects on how her identity and social position influenced the research process. She subsequently touches on how her interest in food vending in Ghana began through a teaching and volunteering experience in a small city in the country, where she built friendships with several community women who operated in the informal food vending business. Despite King having lived within the community for approximately three years, she does not claim a fully emic perspective. Instead, she carefully distinguishes her role as an external researcher while making deliberate efforts to highlight local perspectives and emic values within her analysis.

The use of ethnography enabled her to gain knowledge on how to prepare local dishes, and where to find the best prepared foods. She also highlights how she became cognizant of the discrepancies between her perspective and the people she was studying. Her ethnographic approach teaches researchers not to engage only with primary subjects of the research, but to interact with a wider range of people to better understand their lived experiences. For instance, in her case, although she was primarily interested in how women in the informal economy navigate paths to economic opportunity, she also engaged in conversations with men to provide broader context and strengthen the validity of her findings. Overall, through ethnography, King provides a detailed understanding of the everyday experiences, social networks, and entrepreneurial strategies that shape food vending within Ghana’s informal economy, and this complements broader quantitative studies by revealing the lived realities behind informal economic participation.

Ray, K. (2016). The Ethnic Restaurateur. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Krishnendu Ray examines how migrant communities in the United States pursue economic opportunity through food entrepreneurship. He relied on participant observation, open-ended interviews, and historical analysis to understand the relationship between immigrants, food entrepreneurship, and culinary hierarchies in the restaurant industry. He also used case study analysis of different restaurateurs in his study. His use of ethnography was not in the form of the prolonged participant observation approach. Rather, he relied more on interviews to gather his data. Through his interviews and historical data analysis, he was able to gain a deeper understanding of how certain foods became higher prestige while others were categorized as “cheap”. Also, his open-ended interviews and conversations allowed him to understand how restaurateurs secured their spaces, the financial commitment they made towards securing the spaces and the characteristics of their customers and workers. Ray’s ethnographic methodological approach, when compared to King, is less centered on prolonged participant observation. 

Ray identifies himself as an immigrant in the opening sections of his book, which situates him in a partial emic position, particularly in relation to culinary knowledge and migrant experience. His acknowledgment of having an immigrant background suggests a degree of insider familiarity with the cultural meanings attached to food and migration. However, despite his positional familiarity as an immigrant, Krishnendu primarily writes from an etic standpoint, incorporating and highlighting the emic experiences of migrant restaurateurs in the United States. In this sense, his work reflects a balance between insider awareness and outsider analytical interpretation.  

Reese, A. (2019). Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Ashanté Reese, in her book, demonstrates how historically shaped patterns of food inaccessibility in many Black communities have led community members to actively navigate pathways to secure culturally meaningful foods. Through community networks, local food businesses, and everyday culinary practices, Black communities created distinctive food geographies that reflect both structural inequality and cultural resilience. Reese adopts an ethnographic methodology that centers on personal experiences of individuals, rather than solely on institutional policies or structural explanations. She focuses on daily food practices, shopping routines, community interactions, and personal narratives to explore how Deanwood, a Black community in Washington D.C., navigates pathways towards securing accessible and culturally meaningful food. Her ethnographic methodology relied on participant observation, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, archival research and surveying. She engaged in immersive ethnography by participating in community activities such as volunteering at the recreation center and attending neighborhood association meetings, all of which provided her with a more detailed insider perspective.

Reese establishes her positionality by reflecting on her identity as a Black researcher who grew up in rural Texas, noting that she was initially unfamiliar with the organizational structures and forms of structural inequality present in urban environments. This background shaped her research trajectory, as interactions with students and community members sparked her interest in examining food access and racial inequality in Washington, D.C. Building on these relationships, she further reflects on how her identity as a Black woman facilitated her entry into the Deanwood community and informed her ethnographic research. Additionally, she adheres to ethical principles by being transparent about the purpose of her research. She reflects on how she maintained honesty with participants when asked whether her presence in the community was intended to improve dietary habits, clarifying her role as a researcher rather than an interventionist. Her ethical integrity further fostered trust with participants.

Through ethnography, Reese moves beyond statistical or quantitative measures of food deserts to uncover and understand the lived experiences of food access in Black communities. Also, her approach challenged narratives that portray Black communities as passive victims of food deserts, highlighting the creative strategies residents employ to secure culturally meaningful foods. Reese’s approach teaches the importance of being overt in ethnographic research and communicating openly with participants about the reasons for entering a community. In her case, transparency enabled her to gain the trust of the community residents she studied, and through her long-term engagement of close to four years, she was able to build relations with the people, making her capture the everyday food practices of participants.

Saka, A. L. (2024). The gender dimensions of food security: Ethnographic accounts of agro-pastoralists of the Ittu Oromo, East Africa. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 10. 

Abebe Lemessa Saka’s study examines the gendered dimensions of food security among agro-pastoralists of Ittu Oromo of East Africa. His research highlights the central roles women play in food preservation, preparation and allocation, while noting how their roles have frequently been overlooked in food security analysis. He was reliant on ethnography that was conducted for about a year, drawing on participant observation, focus group discussions and narrative interviews. The focus group discussion and interview were conducted in the language of the participants and translated into English. He conducted a total of nine focus group discussions, two of which were held exclusively with women and another two with a mix of men and women. The remaining five focus groups were composed of only male participants. This allowed him to capture different perspectives of food security from men and women in the community. Saka did not discuss his positionality as a male researcher, and how it may have influenced his interpretations on gender related discourse. 

Through ethnography, Saka was able to document the lived experiences of agro-pastoralists, highlighting the resilient strategies they employ to navigate food security challenges within their environment. Ethnography enabled him to understand the intricacies of food security within the community, particularly highlighting the significant role women play in maintaining household food security, insights that other quantitative research methods cannot fully reveal. 

Allison, A. (1991). Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus. Anthropological Quarterly, 64(4), 195–208.

A depiction of a Japanese school lunch-box⁶

Anne Allison examines how Japanese school nursery lunch-boxes function as ideological instruments within Japanese culture, particularly in relation to the expectations placed on mothers and children. She argues that the preparation and consumption of foods in nursery lunch-boxes embody broader cultural values such as discipline, responsible motherhood, gendered roles, and social conformity. Allison’s research draws on ethnography conducted over approximately fifteen months. She was reliant on participant observations, daily conversations and interviews, and the examination of cookbooks and magazines to collect her data. Through her conversations with her son, interactions with school teachers and participation in Mother Association programs, she was able to understand how lunch-boxes in nursery schools serve as a mechanism of social order that mold children at an early age, while also reinforcing gendered roles for women. Also, an interview with a mother of two children enabled her to understand that though the process may be restrictive to women, it also served as a pleasurable daily ritual of motherhood.   

Reese, Saka, and Allison demonstrate that food practices are deeply embedded within structures of power and inequality, though they examine these dynamics in different sociocultural settings. Reese highlights how Black communities navigate structural racial inequalities surrounding food access in urban America. Saka emphasizes the often-overlooked efforts of women in maintaining household food security among agro-pastoralists. Similarly, Allison’s study reveals how everyday lunch-box practices in Japan reinforce gendered expectations surrounding motherhood and social discipline. Together, these studies illustrate how food practices become important sites through which gender, identity, and social control are negotiated.

Tuomainen, H. (2009). Ethnic Identity, (Post)Colonialism and Foodways. Food, Culture & Society, 12(4), 525–554.

Helena Tuomainen’s study examines how the foodways of Ghanaian migrants in London have been shaped by post colonialism. She highlights how familiarity with certain foods introduced during colonial periods influence Ghanaian immigrants’ food choices after relocating to the United Kingdom. Through her ethnographic methodology, she analyzes how Ghanaians negotiate food practices across domestic, commercial and communal settings in London. Her ethnographic fieldwork lasted for a period of ten months where she conducted informal and tape-recorded in-depth interviews and engaged in participant observation. Her ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in eighteen households of varying sizes, diverse ethnic backgrounds, and differing socioeconomic statuses. She additionally conducted participant observation in a number of Ghanaian social functions, food retail outlets and restaurants. 

Reflecting on the informal and tape-recorded in-depth interviews Tuomainen conducted within Ghanaian households, her methodology was clearly grounded in immersive ethnographic fieldwork. This sustained engagement enabled her to trace changes in dietary patterns over time, particularly in relation to shifts in the size and visibility of the Ghanaian population in London. She highlights that when the Ghanaian community was relatively small, food practices were more privately maintained within domestic spaces. However, as the Ghanaian population grew and community networks strengthened, traditional foods increasingly became public markers of identity and gained social prominence at gatherings and communal events in London. Hence, through ethnography, Tuomainen was able to demonstrate how demographic change reshaped the symbolic and social significance of Ghanaian foods in diasporic settings.

Her use of participant observation across Ghanaian social functions, food retail outlets and restaurants underscores how her methodology adopted a multi-sited strategy. This allowed her to capture how food practices operated across different spheres of Ghanaian diasporic life. Furthermore, her engagement with households of diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds strengthened her findings by providing a more nuanced understanding of how migration, identity and food intersect with the Ghanaian diaspora in London. Tuomainen acknowledges her positionality as a British researcher entering Ghanaian households in London but did not explicitly discuss how her positionality influenced her interpretations. 

Overall, ethnography enabled Tuomainen to uncover the everyday food practices among Ghanaian immigrants in London that would likely remain invisible in quantitative or policy-based studies. Also, through sustained participant observation and in-depth interviews, she was able to capture how Ghanaian foods functioned as a marker of identity. Additionally, ethnography enabled her to identify how demographic shifts within the diaspora transformed food from a privately maintained tradition into a publicly displayed symbol of cultural identity.

Similar to Reese’s discussion of culturally meaningful food practices in Black communities, Tuomainen demonstrates how food functions as a marker of identity among Ghanaian migrants in London. However, while Reese focuses on structural inequalities surrounding food access, Tuomainen emphasizes how migration and demographic change reshape the symbolic and public meanings attached to food within diasporic communities.

Food as a Window into Social Worlds

The roundtable has brought into conversation the diverse roles food plays across different sociocultural contexts, including how it mediates economic opportunity, migration, identity formation, and structures of inequality. Across these studies, it is particularly fascinating to observe how everyday food practices reveal broader social processes that might otherwise remain invisible without ethnographic research. In Ghana, the experiences of street food vendors demonstrate how food creates economic opportunities. Similarly, in the United States, food provides immigrants with avenues for economic mobility and social integration. In Deanwood, everyday food practices reveal how historical and contemporary inequalities continue to shape access to food. Meanwhile, the experiences of agro-pastoralists, Ghanaians living in the United Kingdom, and Japanese mothers preparing lunch-boxes illustrate how food becomes a medium through which identities are expressed, negotiated, and maintained. Taken together, these studies reveal that food is not simply a reflection of social life, nor is it merely a means of sustenance, but a resource through which people actively navigate their social worlds. Whether through the labor of food vending, the preparation of school lunches, or the creation of food spaces within marginalized communities, individuals use food to respond to, negotiate, and sometimes reshape the social, economic, and political conditions that surround them. The strength of ethnography lies in its ability to illuminate these everyday negotiations, showing how larger structures of power become visible through seemingly ordinary everyday food practices.

References

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