Stomach-Thought: Popular Portuguese Imageries of Ethnic Food, Indirect Group Representations, and the Sociocultural Condition of Afrodescendants of Cabo Verdean Origin

• Autor(a) principal: Lam, Kaian
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/28568
• topic: Cabo Verde; Cultural representations; Food; Ethnic; Fieldwork; Afrodescendants of Cabo Verdean origin

This study is inspired by an ongoing associational project to discuss issues of intercultural communication and to raise our awareness of existing cultural representations and possible discriminatory practices in Portuguese society. It focuses on representations in popular Portuguese imageries of ethnic food, i.e., “African” food versus “Asian” food. The Asian comparison is mainly used to illustrate, highlight, and make sense of the African case. The objective is to use food as a lens of analysis to present a dynamic picture of contemporary Afro-experiences in the West and more specifically in Portugal. The materials discussed were collected over four years of residence and fieldwork in Portugal and abroad using anthropologically-based methods. The present study politicizes our “stomach-thought,” proposing a creative way to understand the challenges and opportunities for Afrodescendants and especially Afrodescendants of Cabo Verdean origin in Portugal, whose experiences form the basis of this article.