Food, Ethnicity and Cultural Identity: Staging and Performing Indigenousness through Taiwanese Indigenous Restaurants and Food

Dr. Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh

Food, Ethnicity and Cultural Identity

Abstract

This research takes an inter-disciplinary approach to examine complex interactions between food and ethnicity. Drawing upon participant observation of indigenous restaurants in Hualien in the context of tourism practices, and in-depth interviews with the indigenous restaurants owners, I view food cultures in their wider social, political and economic contexts.  I focus on the socio-cultural dimensions of ethnic restaurants as cultural landscapes and valuable ethnic markers. I explore indigenous restaurants and food as performances of ethnicity that are staged, constructed, and contested. This research also explores the role of food and ethnic restaurants as sites of cross-cultural encounters in which a sense of indigenousness matters. I investigate indigenous restaurants and food as sites in which cultural displays help to construct identity, and examine their implications for this sense of indigenousness. In particular, I argue that foodways are a powerful tool for indigenous people to take back their rights of cultural interpretation and express who they are in a globalized world. Give the recent popularity of indigenous cuisines in Taiwan, they are also a way to make indigenous ethnicity visible in mainstream culture.

Key Words: indigenous restaurants, food, identity, indigenous studies, Taiwan studies

Speaker Bio

Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh has a PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University and teaches in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Culture at National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan. She researches material cultures and cultural performances of indigenous peoples. Her research interests include the cultural studies of tourism and food, identity and cultural practices, cross-cultural consumption, travel as acquisition of cultural capital and performance of personal taste, and indigenous festival and food consumption.

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Organiser: SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: ch45@soas.ac.uk

Sponsor: Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines