Consumer acculturation, gender, and food: Romanian women in Italy between tradition and modernity

Abstract

Consumer acculturation of immigrants has been treated in the literature in two different ways. While the post-assimilationist research has shown that immigrants negotiate the home and host cultures constructing multiple, hybrid identities through their consumption choices, its critics have proclaimed such results dependent on certain implicit conditions of the researched context. This study looks at the negotiation of gender roles of female immigrants as an inseparable part of consumer acculturation in a context that does not present such characteristics. The analysis of the data on immigrant women's understanding of the home and host cuisine first illustrates how such interpretation is intertwined with the gender discourses in the home and host cultures, and then how the heterogeneous reading of the foodstuffs indicate different gender identity positions. It is then shown how the immigrant women forge hybrid gender identities, yet constrained by the discourses in the home and host cultures.

Keywords:

• immigration
• consumer acculturation
• gender
• food consumption

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the guest editors and the reviewers for their very constructive and helpful comments and their encouragement. This paper being based on a dissertation project, many thanks go also to people who have offered invaluable feedback on the previous versions of the research and priceless support throughout the process of its evolution. Moreover, thanks are in order to the participants in this project for having shared their not always joyous life stories.