WORKSHOP: Food and identity in South Asia since independence

SEVENTY-five years on from Indian independence, food security and malnutrition remain key concerns across South Asia.

Yet food and drink have also remained highly significant in shaping different regional identities and in marking out differences between and within communities throughout the region. In this workshop, fifteen scholars, over four panels, explore how practices of consumption and commensality have been both shaped by and shaping of wider socio-economic, political and historical changes across South Asia and amongst its diasporas.

How has the industrialisation of food production and economic liberalisation—bringing international restaurant chains to the region’s major cities and their imitators to many small towns—affected consumption patterns and what food and drink means to people?

How have state sponsored food subsidy or public distribution programmes influenced food cultures or nutrition?

Why has food become so significant in struggles to assert marginalised identities and to resist oppression?

And how have food ways travelled beyond and within the region?

Collectively, our speakers and discussants address all these questions and more, as well as giving attendees the opportunity to contribute in Q&A and discussion sessions.

This event is part of the Brunel Research Festival, which returns this May for a packed programme of online and in-person activities, celebrating cutting-edge and challenge-led research at Brunel and beyond.

Showcasing the world-class research carried out by colleagues from across the University, the Festival is a month-long celebration of the diverse local and global benefits of our research.

Free and open to all.

Explore the programme: brunel.ac.uk/brf

Click here to register your place