Crossing Culinary Borders, Incorporating Change. The Multivocality of Six Migrant Women in Zurich

The following thesis addresses the gendered food narratives of six migrant women in Zurich, Switzerland. The study was conducted at OFF_Ort für Frauen, a community centre where regular interactions which include cooking and eating occur between volunteers and migrant women. The thesis is based upon an understanding of the evocative power of food and eating and how important these aspects can be in a migratory context. It questions simple dichotomies concerning gendered research in the field of food and migration in which women (predominantly from the Global South) are seen either as empowered or oppressed subjects. Examining food and eating as (political) border crossings and the kitchen as a contact zone where power dynamics and human contact are debated, the thesis illustrates the multivocality of migrant women and how they negotiate change through food. It also explores the role of food within a complex web of affiliations mediated by gender, class and race/ethnicity. In five ethnographic vignettes, the six migrant women from the centre discuss their relationships with different foods, how they incorporate change and newness into their diets (or not), and ultimately how culinary borders are assessed and renegotiated in both the centre’s kitchen and at home.