Food, Identity and Immigrant Experience

This paper examines the dynamic relationships among food, social identity and the immigrant experience. As a culturally and spatially transitional stage, the immigration process introduces possibilities for change, as well as resistance to new habits, new behaviours and new cultural experiences. These changes in turn affect our physical and mental health, our perceptions of self and our relations with others. Drawing from the literature on food and identity it is possible to offer some insights into this cultural transition and its impact on identity. Recommendations for further research in this field emerging from the identity seminar held in Halifax in November 2001 will be considered.