Cookbooks: A Tool for Engaged Research

Abstract

Cookbooks are not just about cooking. As scholars from various disciplines have long argued, cookbooks are emotive texts that play an active role in shaping norms about belonging, gender, class, race, and sexuality. This article suggests that although cookbooks are widely analyzed as vibrant sites of social, cultural, and geopolitical production, they are overlooked as a valuable method for doing engaged research. Grounded in practice, this article explores how cookbooks might be mobilized as an arts-based, collaborative academic research tool. By way of demonstration, this article shares how we (a collective of activists, academics, artists, and temporary foreign workers) used a cookbook to gather testimony, build solidarity, and politicize Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. By sharing our cookbook we hope to contribute to a growing area of research that stretches beyond traditional modes of dissemination and takes creative, lively form in ways that affirm the political lives of migrant communities.

食谱并非仅关乎烹饪。各领域的学者长久以来主张，食谱是感情的文本，并在形塑归属、性别、阶级、种族与性向的常规上，扮演积极的角色。本文主张，尽管食谱被广泛分析作为社会、文化与地缘政治生产的活跃场域，但其作为从事参与研究的宝贵方法却受到忽略。本文以实践为基础，探讨食谱如何可能被动员作为以艺术为基础的协作学术研究工具。本文分享我们（社会运动者、学者、艺术家和临时外籍移工的集合）如何运用食谱来聚集声明、增进团结，并政治化加拿大的季节性农业工人计画来进行展示。通过分享我们的食谱，我们希望对于超越传统散播模式、并採取具创意且生动的形式来确认移民社群的政治生活的成长中之研究作出贡献。

Los libros de recetas no son solo acerca de cocina. Como desde hace mucho tiempo sostienen los académicos de varias disciplinas, los libros de recetas o de cocina son textos emotivos que juegan un papel activo en la configuración de normas acerca de pertenencia, género, clase, raza y sexualidad. En este artículo se sugiere que, aunque los libros de cocina son ampliamente analizados como sitios vibrantes de producción social, cultural y geopolítica, se les desestima como método valioso para hacer investigación comprometida. Fundamentado en la práctica, este artículo explora el modo como los libros de cocina podrían ser movilizados como herramienta académica de investigación colaborativa basada en las artes. A manera de demostración, este artículo comparte la manera como nosotros (un colectivo de activistas, académicos, artistas y trabajadores extranjeros temporales) usamos un libro de cocina para recoger testimonio, construir solidaridad y politizar el Programa del Trabajador Agrícola Estacional del Canadá. Al compartir nuestro libro de cocina esperamos contribuir a un área de investigación en expansión que se extiende más allá de los modos tradicionales de diseminación y adopta una forma creativa y vital de tal manera que reivindica las vidas políticas de comunidades migratorias.

Keywords:

• affect
• cookbook
• creative geographies
• food
• migration
• participatory action research

• 情绪
• 食谱
• 创意地理学
• 食物
• 移民
• 参与式行动研究

• afecto
• libro de cocina
• geografías creativas
• alimento
• migración
• investigación de acción participativa

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the traditional Coast and Strait Salish territories where we, as settlers, conducted the research for this article. We wish to honor the temporary workers who leave their families, year after year, to harvest our foods. We especially are grateful to the fifty-three farm workers who shared their testimony with us. Thanks also go to Carly Bagelman and Shoshana Schwebel for their illustrations, and to Eric Nordal, with Retail Action Network and MWDA, for helping us circulate our cookbook.

Notes

Preceding pages: Color figures available online.

1. It must be said that all cookbooks contain great depths of research: from highly technical molecular gastronomy findings, to hands-on investigations of reliable bread recipes, to the anthropological analysis of ingredients, food preparations, and feasting traditions (as can be found in Kuper’s The Anthropologist’s Cookbook). Although these examples of using cookbooks as research tools or modes of dissemination are invaluable, we wonder how the cookbook can be developed in such a way that it does not only land on the kitchen counter of one who would like to try a new recipe, but also the desks of policymakers, city planners, migrant rights activists, and teachers. Further, we wonder how cookbooks can simultaneously build on the activist cookbook tradition to create cookbooks that are documents of empowerment for marginalized communities. We ask this question: How can we generate cookbooks seen as a legitimate source of social science research with tangible social justice aims?

2. See Pedwell (2014) on the potential perils of empathy.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jen Bagelman

JEN BAGELMAN is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research explores how exclusionary citizenship regimes produce various forms of displacement and dispossession. Her activist and academic work is animated by an interest in how people enact (through practices such as sanctuary) more loving geopolitics.

Mariana Astrid Nunez Silva

MARIANA ASTRID NUNEZ SILVA is an MA student in the School of Health Policy and Management, York University, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. Drawing on personal experiences, her research focuses on Canada’s temporary migrant worker programs. In particular, she works with seasonal agricultural workers from México coming into Canada on Vancouver Island, BC. Her research is primarily concerned with questions of health access, dignified housing, and citizenship.

Carly Bagelman

CARLY BAGELMAN is a Curriculum Designer at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, V8P 5C2, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research focuses on creative pedagogy. In particular her work considers the role of picture books as an educational tool for transformative learning.