Conclusion: Food, Nationalism and Politics

Abstract

The current volume has set out with two major aims: to investigate the relationship between food and nationalism, which has been largely neglected in the study of nationalism, and to demonstrate that the ‘food-and-nationalism’ axis provides a useful angle to study politics at various levels. We have argued in our Introduction that it is high time that the relationship between food and nationalism was taken seriously in the study of politics in general and in the study of nationalism more specifically. Food is essential to life and as such it is important in a multitude of ways; it literally sustains life; it is imbued with meanings; it is highly symbolic and emotive; and therefore it is highly political as a number of anthropologists have argued. Food features prominently in politics: in defining the problems that are important for a society (‘it is part of our cultural heritage to eat dog meat and therefore foreigners should not meddle with it’); in the contest over power and values in public as seen in the Zionist attempt to create new Jews through diet and the sometimes hostile responses to it; and in ‘the authoritative allocation of values, rights and duties for the community as a whole’ as seen in the European Union’s granting of a Geographical Indication (Huysmans, 2005: 75). On the other hand, politics today is permeated by the ideology of nationalism as a nation-centric worldview.