Enhancing food-related agency in refugees and asylum seekers: A driver to resilience and regenerative empowerment

Journal title MONDI MIGRANTI
Author/s Maria Giovanna Onorati
Publishing Year 2021 Issue 2021/2
Language English Pages 16 P. 89-104 File size 227 KB
DOI 10.3280/MM2021-002005
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The paper argues the importance of food in the contexts of "forced migration" and the promising impact of enhancing food-related capabilities on refugees’ em-powerment and social inclusion. To support the argument, the Author presents a pilot project based on research-action and providing food training for 39 refugees hosted in Piedmont. The research findings show that a participatory approach to training that values prior culinary learning, and the use of narrative interviews elic-iting food stories, may favour empowerment and social inclusion. Recovering food-related agency within refugees’ unfinished journeys contributes to an em-powerment going beyond a sedentarist model of integration, namely a one-way and singularly place-bound demand of adaptation. Food agency is a basic enti-tlement that proves to be a major source of well-being for forced migrants, as well as a regenerative occasion for both healing ‘refugee gaps’, and providing a more sustainable approach to resources.

Keywords: "forced migration"; food training; food agency; regenerative empow-erment; social inclusion; participatory approach.

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Maria Giovanna Onorati, Enhancing food-related agency in refugees and asylum seekers: A driver to resilience and regenerative empowerment in "MONDI MIGRANTI" 2/2021, pp 89-104, DOI: 10.3280/MM2021-002005