05-08 Foodways and the Negotiation of Roots, Rootlessness, and Uprooting

Friday, November 03, 10:30 am–12:30 pm
Forum Suite

This live event will not be recorded.

Sponsored by the Foodways Section


Chair: Solimar Otero (Indiana University)

10:30 am
The Colors of Spring: Agency and Multisensorial Celebration of Holi in Barwa, Nepal
Suyash Kumar Neupane (Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology)

11:00 am
Grief-free Recipes of aşure: Muharrem Commemorations in Turkish Media
Ezgi Benli-Garcia (Indiana University Bloomington)

11:30 am
Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Traditional Arts & Women's Lives
Christine F. Zinni (State University of New York, Brockport)

12:00 pm
optional discussion time

This session addresses the ideas of roots, rootlessness, and uprooting through the examination of foodways at the center of human belonging as seen through preserved, contested, and recovered identities. In recounting ethnographic experiences with diverse communities, we examine foodways and music of Bhojpuri Nepali celebrations of Holi, the exclusion of Alevi mourning narratives in the larger Turkish culture’s promotion of aşure as a “national dessert,” and finally the preservation and practice of Traditional Ecological Knowledge related to women’s foodways and sense of place.