Diaspora, Food and Identity

Front matter

P.I.E. Peter Lang

EUROPEAN FOOD ISSUES ew Maureen Duru

Diaspora, Food and Identity

CHAPTER Two UNITY IN DIversITY Unity in diversity 1. 2

Food and Identity Construction in Nigeria 0...

CHAPTER THREE l

PA

3. 4, 5.

“O je mba enwe iwe”: perspectives on Nigerian migration tends taisei at e ea E E RR RN

International migration trends: relating theories and concepts to the Nigerian migration context «00.0.0...

Nigerian migrants in Belgium jae sijcnascantacttalvenaritssacuiusnns The demography of Nigerians in Belgium «0.0.00... cee

CHAPTER FOUR The Nigerian foodways in Belgium 00.0.0... ccceseseseeeeeeeeeeeeees

1. 2.

Nigerian restaurants and the making of a diaspora

food way in Dele MIN wigntidne tints ronda antici Whose food is it anyway: African shops and the making

of a Nigerian foodway in Belgium isccncciaieccvsceesicencisieevcdies So they eat that too? Food products:

A Reflection of the Nigerian Food Culture 0...

Chapter Five

2. Creating and negotiating identity in the Nigerian diaspora Kitchen: siarsdsvcescecubiansracasityeliehgemisietneertea emus 209 3. Nigerian meal times in Belgium slic ninciinarnnineonmanes 216 5. A meal on the interracial table vissialsstcncalsdeeuciadrncnasieavetirasate 221 6. Feeding the next generation ...sesssesssssseesiesteesiesresresresrreesresresees 227 8. Food-related gender roles in Nigerian households

TVG TUT se e a Aap aa lads, a ee Headey Baan 240 9. Dinning OU esi oegi eaaa 249 10. “Omenala ga ad?” (traditions and customs will remain)

but with something new too ..sssssessssssessessreesresteseesresrerssessresee 251 CHAPTER Six

2. “Their food is good but ours is still the best”.

Food, eating and being Nigerian in Belgium ..s..sssssssssssisssesse 262 Appendix I seria rE A AEE E 269 Appendir 2 a a aae ia e T iadaa SE aE 271 Appendi Sol eien osu vans devon todos e E A EE 279

Acknowledgement

The writing of this book would not have been achieved without the help of many people, who in different ways supported me and made themselves and their resources available to me during my doctorate research and the writing of the PhD thesis which form the basis for this book.

My profound gratitude goes to Professor Dr Peter Scholliers, my PhD academic supervisor, who despite my shortcomings and challenges never gave up on me. I sincerely thank him for taking out time to read the manuscript again, make comments, advice and support me throughout this process.

I thank the members of the Nigerian community who agreed to be interviewed, provided needed information and supported me during my PhD research. Although I cannot mention you all, I appreciate your support. I couldnt have done this without your help especially Chief and Mrs Tajudeen Fasanya, Mr and Mrs John Ubah, Dr and Mrs Emmanuel Omanukwue, Aluba Kalu-Otis, Vena and Marylyn Ani. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Katrijn Asselberg, Charles and Chinyere Obi-Obasi for their help with the manuscript. I am also grateful to Mr Trevor Smith of Cadenza Consulting and Ms Eleonore Grave for proof reading my work.

I wish to acknowledge the support of Mr John Duru-Onweni and the Duru family (Emeka, Okey, Ogechi, and Tessy). The support of Pastor Ademola and Joan Farinu, Mrs Chinyere Heurion and Mrs Julie Anyikwa is very much appreciated. Ms Diana Dimbueni also has my profound gratitude for the cover images and her willingness to always use her creative skills to support my work and Chibuzor Anthony for helping with the cover graphics.

I also appreciate the assistance of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, who sponsored the publication of this book and the editorial team of the Peter Lang publishing company.

Introduction

1. Ajourney of different routes

Writing this book started from an academic quest but writing the thesis it is based on, was not just an academic venture for me. It was a personal journey as well. In the year 2001, I enrolled for a master’s degree at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels. The choice to study for a Masters in European Studies, focusing on European Integration and Development was not made out of any ambition for a lucrative career at the European Commission or affiliated bodies, but rather it was the choice of a migrant propelled by necessity. Having worked for years before joining my partner in Belgium, I found myself undocumented and unemployed which was hard to bear. With nothing to occupy my mind, the frustration was putting pressure on me and those around me. A way out was to occupy myself by studying. So, I chose a master’s programme offered in English. Under no illusions about what I intended to do with the degree, most of the classes were just routine. Then I attended my first lecture for the course “European Cultures and Mentalities in Historical and Comparative Perspective” taught by Professor Peter Scholliers. Not only did I find it interesting, it was also academically stimulating for me. As a historian, who worked for years as the producer of a national television cuisine programme in Nigeria, the study of people, society and food from a historical perspective challenged me to look inward at the food and culture within my society.

Writing about Nigeria, the people and the culture, is so complicated that sometimes people write about one of the groups within the nation and present them as representative of the Nigerian nation. Nothing can be further from the truth. Homogeneity in all its ramifications is not a given in this diverse and complex nation. As an Igbo from the eastern part of the country, I spent years studying in Calabar, in Southern Nigeria. Upon graduation, I served for one year in Uyo (in the then newly created Akwa Ibom state in Southern Nigeria) as a corps member of the compulsory national youth service (NYSC)'. Later, I moved to Lagos in the west, to

' NYSC is the acronym for the “National Youth Service Corps’, a compulsory one-year service to the fatherland which all Nigerian graduates from recognised academic institutions must perform. The scheme was established in 1973 by the then military study and work, eventually living there for more than a decade. Work and friends (made at the university and the NYSC) provided me with opportunities to visit different parts of the western region. I have never lived in the north but I visited northern Nigeria for work and to spend time with friends and family.

I count myself as one of the lucky Nigerians, who have had the good fortune of experiencing the colourful tapestry of Nigerian culture and people. This experience has enabled me to have close contact with people from all over the country, both within their cultural domain and outside, thus giving me an insight into the socio-cultural attributes inherent in the different groups.

Having said this, I cannot claim to know any Nigerian group as well as I know the Igbo, which is my ethnic group and helped form my world view. Hence, in this book sometimes in drawing comparison with others, I may use aspects, references and frames of the Igbo culture more than the cultures of other Nigerian groups. However, the aim of this work is to explore and present Nigeria, its diverse people, food and culture within Nigeria and in the diasporas. I have arranged this book in such a way that it will convey an understanding of what it means to be Nigerian. Amidst our complex diversity, the difficult journey and detours in our history, there is a need to portray representations of our society, which can convey our world view and which enabled the emergence of new communities in different cultural milieus. Hence, certain aspects that are not so intrinsically linked to food are still relevant, because without them, this will be an incomplete history. Comprehending the Nigeria diaspora albeit in Belgium is helped with adequate knowledge of where we came from, who we encountered and how we got to this new place.

2. Migrant Communities: Food, Identity and Belonging At a wedding between a Nigerian man and a Flemish woman in Genk,

Belgium, a titled Igbo man performed the kolanut rites’ thus highlighting the Igbo adage that the kola nut travels and talks too much. One wonders government after the Nigerian civil war. The aim was to build national unity, thus graduates are posted to states different from their state of origin and which they are unfamiliar with, in the belief that exposing them to other cultures and their close interaction with people from different ethnic groups will build tolerance and lessen ethnic allegiances. However, achieving its set goals has been a challenge as shown by the number of corps members killed in the recent ethno-religious conflicts in Northern Nigeria. This has led to some parents and graduates refusing posting for service in some states (Marenin, 1989; Thisday Newspaper, April 23 2011).

Among the different ethnic groups that make up Nigeria, the value of the kolanut varies, almost inversely, in symbolic and economic importance. In Nigeria especially then what routes the kolanuts used for the rites may have travelled, what language(s) they speak and what tone was used. What does the kolanut say to the father of the bride? Does it speak the same way to the father of the bride as it does to the titled Igbo men, as each of them got a kolanut to take home? Moreover, for the Igbo men, is the kola nut really as important as it is in their homeland in Nigeria? The above illustrates the importance of culturally prescribed food norms, how people in diaspora use food to distinguish themselves from others or engage with others within their environment. In a previous work (Duru, 2005), I used the kola nut rites to highlight the changes Nigerians in Belgium undergo when they come into contact with other cultures. This showed that although migration affects the ritual in its form rather than its ritualistic content, it actually reinforces its traditional operation. One wonders if the same can be said of daily food habits, which have no ritualistic relevance in the lives of the people and if these food habits can also be powerful means of identification for the Nigerian diaspora community.

In this chapter my objective is to provide the framework, which will tackle the questions concerning migrants and the relevance of food in gauging the engagements and sense of belonging within diaspora communities. The combination of diaspora and food, in turn, brings to the fore the question of identity and how diaspora food habits are relevant or reflected in the identification process of the diaspora communities. Of relevance is an understanding of the composition and context of diasporas across the world. Diasporas as noted by Brah (1996), in the sense of historical experiences are composed of divergent groups made up of many journeys to different parts of the globe, each with its own history and particularities. These make each diaspora an interweaving of multiple travelling, “a text of many distinctive and perhaps even disparate narratives” (Brah, 1996, p. 183). This is also reflective of Agnew’s view (2005, p. 4), that the word diaspora can be used or defined in a number of different ways, which have more to do with the scholars’ discipline rather than with a substantive concern about the term. Hence, while using the term diaspora, one has to bear in among the Igbo ethnic group, the kola nut is foremost an item which initiates, promotes and sustains social interaction. At any social occasion, whether a visit of friends, marriage, child dedication, burial even some business transactions, the kola nut is present. The presentation of the kola nut is a social and spiritual ritual. The kola nut communion is a very important item on the agenda of every gathering. Communion is not too strong a term: indeed, prayers invariably accompany the reception of the kola nut, indicating its spiritual status. Moreover stipulated formats and rules guide the presentation of the kola nut at all occasions. Thus in any gathering, drinking, eating and dancing are usually secondary and complementary to the kola nut rites. For the Igbos there are four main parts of the kola nut rites: the presentation (iche oji), the blessing (igo oji), the breaking (wa oji) and the distribution (éke oji) (Duru, 2005).

mind its original definition as well as its subsequent broader use. The word “diaspora” has gained a wide audience in the social sciences, humanities and political sphere in the last 20 years, significantly increasing its scholarship. The Greek word was originally associated with dispersion of populations due to persecution or forced displacement, initially used to refer to the classic cases of Greek, Armenian and Jewish diasporas. In recent years the term “diaspora” has been used for migrants who, some argue, have not been forcefully dispersed (Agnew, 2005, p. 3; Munz and Ohliger, 2003; Cohen, 2008; Brubaker, 2005, p. 3). However, most of these migrants were forced to leave by a variety of negative circumstances in their homelands. Some economic migrants can argue that unequal opportunities and corruption, which limits their ability and access to a good quality of life, is a form of persecution (Nwolisa, 2004, p. 240; Ogan, 2001, p. 6).

There is, however, what one may refer to as the main context in which diasporas exist’. Firstly, diasporas are dispersed across different locations outside their homeland (real or imagined), of which the migrants all have a collective memory and some hope to return to once conditions are favourable. Secondly, there are links and exchanges between the various separated populations, which make up these diasporas and the homeland. These exchanges may be articulated through social, economic, political and cultural links, which give the diasporas continuous relevance in the homeland and to their existence in foreign lands. The level at which the diasporas acknowledge the homeland varies in its intensity as they invest in maintaining a link through language, religion, customs and traditions (Van Hear, 1998; Cohen, 2008; Amuwo, 2009). This link to the homeland can act as a constant reference, which helps reinforce traditional values, identity and loyalties, and can maintain a boundary between the diasporas and the host community. As a minority, this separate existence, even if only culturally, can provide the framework for group formation and claim making of migrants. This is sometimes necessitated by the continuous restrictions or challenges within the host communities, which raise barriers and impress on the migrants that they may not be fully accepted within the new cultural space and need to create their own space (Cohen, 2008; Brubaker, 2005; Amuwo, 2009). Yet, according to Manning (2010, pp. 10-11), diasporas can be big or small and may even lie within a larger diaspora, which is evident with the Nigerian case.

Whatever the frame of reference is, the existence of a Nigerian diaspora is not in doubt. Most diasporas with African origin tend to be classified as African diasporas and, within this context, people are further classified

> As there is not just one diaspora community but many, composed of people of different races and origins, I will use “diasporas” in reference to multiple groups, but when indicating a particular group the term “diaspora” will be utilized.

by a nationality or ethnic group. When an African diaspora is discussed, the first reference is to the descendants of men and women forcefully dispersed all over the world as slaves — the old African diasporas. However, the replacement of the term Pan-Africanism in academic discourse with the term diaspora in the 1950s, allows more scope for one to recognise the different realities of being an African at home and away from Africa, whether in the old or new African diasporas (Okpewho, 2009; Zeleza, 2009; Osirim, 2010). The inhabitants of what is today Nigeria were major participants in the slave trade and many of the old African diasporas have ancestors who were originally from Nigeria. Some of these diasporas have maintained links with their origins through food, religion and politics (Adeyemo et al., 2001; Apter, 1991; Chambers, 2009).

Among the new Nigerian diaspora are those who were dispersed by war, mainly those from the eastern region who left during or after the Biafra war (1967-1970). However, the majority of present-day Nigerian migrants are people who left due to bad governance and lack of opportunities, coupled with years of mismanagement by those in power (Falola and Heaton, 2008, pp. 255-256). Having migrated, they still maintain some economic, social, cultural and political links with home. These links between the Nigerian migrants and their country can be through economic investments at home, remitting money to family and friends, reenacting cultural activities and traditional norms, and supporting political initiatives (Adepoju, 2006). Many Nigerians, like other Africans in the diaspora, strive to acquire a dual citizenship as it offers more mobility within the host country and also offers a guaranteed access (if they travel home) to the host country or other countries in the world, which can be challenging or even impossible with a Nigerian passport due to stringent visa requirements. These transnational movements have further strengthened the links between Nigeria and the country’s diverse diaspora communities.

Diasporas cannot exist without migration, irrespective of the propelling factors. Hence, a study of diasporas is inevitably a study of migration and migrants. Thus, in referring to the people in the Nigerian diaspora, the term Nigerian migrants will also be used in this book.

2.1. Eating from home away from home; the place of food and identity in the diaspora discourse

People do not eat the same foods or the same ways. Cultures and societies attach much importance to food, which goes far beyond plain nutritional requirements (Lupton, 1998). Food is a very complex, paradoxical subject. In all communities, food choice and taste are socially and culturally constructed. These, in turn, are ingrained in the cuisines of communities, which people accept and internalise as part of their cultural and even nutritional knowledge. This relationship between food, taste and cuisine tends to be symbiotic, as they influence each other in determining what is good to eat, how it should be cooked and what should be avoided (Civitello, 2011, p. viii).

Food traverse generations and communities. It is equipped with the ability to tell the story of a people, its history and its culture, together with what aspect has been sustained and what has changed. Due to food’s ability to create links and bonds, focusing on any given food or food habits can be a means of understanding the configurations of a community and expose wider issues within any given society. Attention to historical change, as noted by Pilcher (2006), is essential to understanding how food has helped shape human societies. All foodstuffs have a history, which sometimes lies in a different locality from where it has the greatest impact. Historians and scholars of other disciplines have been able not just to study these origins, but can use food to elucidate societal changes within a given period (Mintz et al., 1985; Mintz, 1996; Belasco, 2007; Bell and Valentine, 1997; Dinner, 2001). Food has been utilized as a symbolic tool for examining the cultural and social relations between and within societies. It can weave a link between people of the same group through rituals and rites. This helps one to recognize those who are within the group and those who live outside it (Douglas, 1984; Counihan, 1999; Holtzman, 2003; Gabaccia, 1998).

Although some scholars are of the opinion that people have an innate taste preference especially for sweet or sour, others maintain that taste is culturally dictated as it is the society in which one is socialised that will inform what taste category a food item is given. Not only that, even when people encounter new food, they value its taste based on their already acquired cultural yardstick for a negative or positive reaction (Rozin and Vollmecke, 1986; Meiselman et al., 1996; Montanari, 2004; Anderson, 2005; Korsmeyer, 1999). As Macbeth (1997) argues regarding taste, there is “the essential interaction of the genetic and non-genetic”, as gustatory sensations develop early while olfactory likes and dislikes seem to develop throughout life through experiences and associations. This is evident in people’s food choice especially away from their initial cultural environment as they encounter new food and still maintain old eating habits.

Although eating habits as well as taste are culturally learned from an early age, these are continuously evolving to accommodate new food encounters (Macbeth, 1997). Devoid of war or famine, cultural influences define what is food within any given society and the attached symbolic relevance. The role of food as an identity marker, or means of identification, can be subtle or obvious in people’s everyday lives. What and how people eat can tell us who they are, and about the culture within which they live (Grew, 2000). As people move, they also carry their foodways along. Nowhere is this more evident than in the food practices of diasporas. The universal nature of food grants it an enormous potential as a means of mapping societal changes and values. This is possible because issues relating to food are linked to broader issues at the micro and macro levels of any given society. Thus, migrants proactively search for ways of using food to recreate their sense of self, taste and identity. Amidst various other food choices only that which they have learned to term as “food” is accepted and recreated even if not in its “true” form. This will be further highlighted as this study focuses more on diaspora identification processes.

Food can serve as a valid tool for mapping trends in migration, highlighting the link between food in the past and the present. It can portray the varied trajectories of different food items across the world (Bower, 2009; Ferrero, 2002). For migrants, maintaining their food habits may serve as a consistent means of alleviating the challenges of finding their place in a potentially threatening environment (Harbottle, 1995, pp. 27-29). The sentiment of belonging, which draws its relevance from food especially for migrants, is strongly built around memories and nostalgia, as food brings up memories of home, either in a positive or negative form. Food memories can be negative in the sense that, for example, due to economic limitations migrants may have experienced hunger back home. So, migration may be seen as a solution, to escape hunger. All through history many human migrations were triggered by the search for food or resources to acquire food. As people move to different localities, they carry their foodways along. People use food and remembered food practices as a coping mechanism in a new environment because familiar food or innovations from familiar food, remind them of home (Diner, 2001; Sutton, 2001; Belasco, 2010). The link between food and identity has been examined among many communities, particularly within “ethnic” and diaspora groups. These studies highlight food’s significance in the diaspora space and the different modes it utilizes in manifesting the diaspora practices within and outside the group (Ray, 2004; Goode et al., 2003; Harbottle, 1995; 2004; Dinner, 2001).

As the world’s largest industry, the food business is estimated at about 3-4 trillion dollars, having 10 per cent of the Global Gross Domestic product with millions of people working in the sector (Miller et a/., 2009, p. 6; Belasco, 2008, p. 8). Many of these workers in the food industry are migrants. Since food can also elucidate economic patterns within society, the diaspora communities’ entrepreneurial activities and how they reflect on the wider community can be viewed through food. The scope and context of these food entrepreneurial activities gauges the engagements within and between communities, how these mark their long-term food innovation, acceptance or tolerance of each other’s food. These economic engagements show how various factors are interlinked to provide access to familiar food. This, in turn for the diaspora itself, helps in creating food networks across different foodscapes and hybrid foodways, which sometimes is only “authentic” within the diaspora, as many aspects within it are unknown in the homeland. Evidence of this is seen in migrant homes, ethnic food businesses such as restaurants, and food shops (Mohring, Harbottle, 2004, 1997; Deutsch, 2002; Lindgreen and Hingley, 2009; Bell and Valentine, 1997; Kershen, 2002).

The family is at the centre of most food-related activities in most cultural milieus. Thus the use of food in diaspora families can throw more light on the power play within; the economic status, gender relations and values, not just of the family, but of the wider society. The role of families is not only seen with regard to food production, provision and preparation, but also in the sustenance of culturally acceptable eating habits. This goes further into disclosing the connection between food, gender and power, thus bringing to the fore feminist perspectives, which view women’s housework, including cooking, as a form of subjugation (Avakian and Haber, 2005; Charles and Kerr, 1988; Inness, 2001; Counihan, 1998; Whitehead, 1994; Counihan and Kaplan, 1998; Murcott, 1983, 1997).

The relevance of identification in the diaspora experience, especially through food, is a very important aspect of this book. Identity is a complex term to define, but diaspora identity derives from a multiplicity of sources. According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “Identity is who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group which makes them different from others”. This defines identity in its most simplistic form. However, as Gilroy (1997) pointed out, identity offers much more than an obvious, commonsensical way of talking about individuality and community. People are fundamentally the products of history, culture and society (Hogg and Abrams, 1988, p. 1). Human identity is thus socially, historically and culturally constructed. As all identities are constructed, the real issue is who constructs identity, how people do it, what do they use, and what are their reasons. Due to the constant self-dialogues about who we are, people tend to project an image, characteristics and values to those around them, and decide how their reaction to them should be valued. This, in turn, may influence their future actions or inactions, making individual and collective identity open to continuous assessment. Sometimes, the possibility of individual choice may be circumscribed by shared conventions, codes and values. This is what Castells (2004) refers to as the process of construction of meaning on the basis of a cultural attribute or set of related cultural attributes, pointing out that identities become identities if social actors internalize them and attach meaning to them. This construction of identities draws resources from history, geography, biology and a multiplicity of sources (Taylor and Spencer, 2004;

Castells, 2004). According to Woodward, identity gives us an idea of who we are, and of how we relate to others, and to the world in which we live; marking the ways we are the same as others, and the ways in which we are different: “it marks inclusion and exclusion, as insiders or outsiders — us and them”. Furthermore, “it is produced, consumed and regulated within culture” (Woodward, 1997, p. 2). Hence, cultural identities have an origin and history, which may entail constant changes in their construction. These different trajectories of cultural identity were well illustrated by definitions by Hall (1996). As he pointed out, on one hand cultural identity can be a sort of collective “one true self”, hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed “selves”, which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common. Within the terms of this definition, our cultural identities reflect the common historical experiences and shared cultural codes, which provide us as “one people”, with stable, unchanging and continuous frames of reference and meaning, beneath the shifting divisions and variations of our actual history. This is an underlying factor in the various efforts by Africans in positioning, creating and building an identity for African diasporas. Yet, Hall recognises that there are “deep and significant differences” in the identity of the members of the African diaspora, which reflects their varied experiences. Thus, cultural identity is also about belonging to the past, present and the future of multiple localities. Identities are about questions of using the resources of history, language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being, not “who we are” or “where we come from” so much as what we might become, how we have been represented and how that influences how we might represent ourselves (Hall, 1996). Identity helps people to understand the interplay between their subjective experiences of the world, the cultural and historical setting in which subjectivity is formed (Gilroy, 1997, pp. 301-340). This way, their sense of belonging, or who they are, is continuously influenced or negotiated within their cultural environment, portraying the constant negotiations and reassessment inherent in identity formations.

Identity differentiated either as primary or secondary, is full of challenges. Moreover, people in diasporas have multiple allegiances and links from which they can draw meaning. Therefore, viewing identity as either collective shared history among individuals, affiliated by race or ethnicity which is considered as fixed (primary) can even be contradictory, marked with the multiplicity of the non-fixed (secondary) and its similarities as well as differences (Woodward, 2000 & 2003; Gilroy, 1997). Diaspora identities are strengthened from within as much as from outside the group, as identities marking difference are only obvious when contrasted by others. Some forms of identity are ascribed from the outside and might have a different connotation for those within the home community, but assume a stronger meaning in the diaspora. A good example is the modern use of the term “African” in European societies in referring to Africans especially those of Sub-Saharan origin. In Africa, many Africans know about their origin, but that is not their first form of identification. It is only when they live outside the continent that “Africanness” surpasses all other sentiments of geographical belonging as a reference of identity. People call them “Africans”, a universal term which they in turn learn to use as it infers membership of a wider network than that which nationalities provide. African entities and governments in line with this trend now recognise an African diaspora and a national diaspora. A good example is the African Union’s reference to the African diasporas (old and new) as the 5" region after East, West, North and South Africa. The Nigerian government also makes efforts to engage with their diaspora through NIDO* — Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (Zeleza, 2009; Swyngedouw, 2009).