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ABSTRACT
Street kitchens organised by religious groups in response to food poverty and homelessness have become a ubiquitous feature of British cities. Although a good deal of literature has explored this genre of social action, relatively little has analysed it as a feature of religious practice associated with post-migrant communities. This paper uses data drawn from ethnographic research on Sikh and Muslim street kitchens in two British cities to consider the significance of such initiatives amongst Britain’s South Asian communities. The paper focuses on the role of narrative in this context, deploying Ingold’s notion of ‘storied knowledge’ to analyse fluid, emergent ethical practices expressed through religion-related stories. These practices, envisaged here as ‘religioning’, draw on South Asian religious traditions creatively reconfigured in the postcolonial city. I argue that such developments constitute a significant diasporic intervention into settled accounts of ‘faith’ as a vehicle for ethical citizenship in British urban environments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. My research is qualitative and limited to particular areas, so I have no conclusive data on the relative commitment of different communities, but my work does suggest that Sikh and Muslim groups are more prominent in the provision of the kind of initiatives I focus on in this paper: that is, the provision of food and drink in street kitchens. Some social action initiatives amongst Hindu groups have been documented (Zavos Citation2015a), but these appear to be intermittent, rather than the kind of regular day to day or weekly activity that is apparent amongst some Sikh and Muslim groups in Bradford and Birmingham.
2. See also Zavos (Citation2017), Zavos (Citation2018).
3. Both Bradford and Birmingham rank amongst the most deprived local authority areas in England, with Birmingham ranking 6th and Bradford 11th in an index based on the proportion of neighbourhoods in the most deprived 10% nationally. Both authorities have seen their ranking position in this index rise between 2010 and 2015 (DCLG Citation2015, 14). On food poverty in Birmingham, see Birmingham Food Council (Citation2015). On Bradford, see Power et al. (Citation2017), and also Zavos (Citation2017, Citation2018).
4. The principle dataset of the project of which this paper is a part was gathered during ethnographic fieldwork in Birmingham and Bradford over four years from 2013 to 2017. I engaged with a total of fourteen initiatives related in one way or another to religious traditions: various Christian denominations, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism, and one initiative variously described as multi-faith and non-faith. Primary research has been approved by the University of Manchester’s Research Ethics Committee.
5. For example, Manningham in Bradford, Handsworth in Birmingham – even though both these localities are multi-ethnic and multi-religious.
6. Although one of the initiatives is linked loosely to a particular religious institution in Birmingham, the other three are independent, relying on a network of business and religious links to sustain their operations.
7. In all cases, data has been anonymised (via pseudonyms where appropriate), so that neither individuals nor specific initiatives may be identified.
8. In this paper, I will deploy the technical distinction between story as a collection of related events, and narrative as the form through which stories are delivered.
9. On narratives of Sikh ‘fundamentalism’ in the UK, see Gill (Citation2014, 337–338).
10. A succession of government policy initiatives and reports since the beginning of the 21st Century have sought to mine this perceived societal resource. As the then Minister for Communities and Local Government Hazel Blears notes in the foreword to one such report, ‘When there are problems in a neighbourhood – whether it is drugs, crime, violence or pollution – faith communities are often the first on the scene, making a difference and remaining steadfast and committed where others might despair’, going on to emphasise that the government aimed to ‘encourage the kind of practical inter faith cooperation that can make pleasant and harmonious neighbourhoods for all’ (DCLG Citation2008, 5).
11. As I look out of this window, I see a particular squirrel that frequents our garden – we have named him Vince. He (or she – the knowledge that has been transmitted to me is limited!) is a grey squirrel, a species within the genus squirrel (sciurus), within the order of rodents (rodentia), part of the class of mammals, part of the phylum chordata – animals with backbones.
12. To return to my garden, our sentimental quasi-humanising of the squirrel as Vince represents a move from the vertical classification of the squirrel (see note 11) to the horizontal placing of the individual as Vince, ‘our’ squirrel in ‘our’ garden (and made possible by the semi-domestic space of the garden). Ingold’s storied knowledge sees Vince rather in verb terms, ‘squirrelling’, moving from wall to bird table, pausing to eat and drink, looking and listening, leaping across the chasm of the garden steps.
13. That is, rather than sitting above and separate from the world, ‘like a mirage above the road we tread in our material life’ (735), as is the case, he argues, with post-Enlightenment religion.
14. Interview with Hardeep 4/3/17..
15. Interview with Sagal 3/11/13.
16. As explained by one Sikh regularly involved in such prayers at a Birmingham street kitchen. Interview with Himat, 27/3/17.
17. Interview with Sajid 13/11/13.
18. Interview with Omar 4/11/13.
19. See, for example, interview with Omar 15/3/17, Sajid 13/11/13.
20. A key point of debate is over whether it was a group of sadhus that was in receipt of Nanak’s compassion. Many versions insist that it was the residents of a village that were hungry and needed his help.
21. Interview with Tegh, 27/2/17.
22. Interview with Omar 15/3/17.
23. This point was made to me by several key interlocutors in interview. For example, Himat 27/3/17, Rohan 27/3/17, Omar 4/11/13.
24. Interview with Rohan 27/3/17.
25. Interview with Shah 16/5/17.
26. Beyond, that is, the fleeting occupation of local spaces with bodies and vehicles. In this context, a form of institutional presence is asserted through branded vans, t-shirts and tabards, driven or worn by volunteers.
27. On FB and moral stance, see also Georgalou (Citation2015, 4).
28. This quotation and description is taken from a screenshot of a FB post. In this and the following two paragraphs, I draw from a number of such screenshots. This data is presented without specific attribution, in order to preserve anonymity. Actual screenshots are not reproduced in order to preserve copyright.