The Belgium team conducted two pilots: 1) an encyclopedia made by and for children: “L’alimenpédie enfantique : the little anthropologist’s Food Guide”; 2) a letter addressed to the staff of an asylum seeker center and recommendations to improve the food experience during their stay

Pilot 1

Needs assessment and aims

The researchers Elodie Razy and Mélanie Viver noticed during their ethnographic fieldwork that there is a lot of focus on nutritional and healthy food in Belgium schools. The fieldwork was on children living at a reception center and schooled in Belgium. They realized that the social and cultural differences in eating habits and tastes could cause tension among children as well as adults, specifically at school where children from different backgrounds can be subject to stigma or lack of self-esteem. This sparked the idea of conducting workshops to have an open dialogue on different ways of thinking about food and acknowledging different ways of eating and understanding food. The researchers aimed at creating a lasting impact and therefore decided to create an encyclopedia as the Covid-19 pandemic did not allow for the original plan of creating a festival.

Pictures of kid's lunchboxes with food in them

Fig. 1. Children’s Lunchboxes @ Élodie Razy

Action

Workshops on the cultural and social dimension of food in primary and nursery schools for six months each week with five different classes were conducted with the pupils as participants.

The product of the workshops is an encyclopedia created by and for children with terms such as anthropology of food, chocolate, rites, or bread created. The encyclopedia will be physically available for the pupils at the school and the reception center and digitally available for everyone for free. The researchers could talk with the children about migration without stigmatizing for instance different ways of eating.

The workshops were collaboratively created among the researchers and in coordination with the teachers. For each topic, the researchers created a template and child-friendly research methods: a role-play to learn doing participant observation about food (a marketplace); a cooking workshop with children’s refugee mothers; to discover new dishes; drawing with a bubble for the lunchbox’s words “If my lunchbox could speak…”. Interviews on eating habits at school and eating habits at home were conducted in order to learn how to do research in anthropology. Sometimes teachers were taking over a group in a class to ensure that some tasks of the encyclopedias were accomplished. During the workshops, the children got to ask anthropologists questions about food and research. Some of the topics of the workshops caught more attention than others. The kids enjoyed having the workshop format with a different kind of learning environment. The workshops were related to class projects to ensure children’s participation in the long term when the researchers were out of the school. The researchers got the children’s and parents’ consent for their contributions and were careful about anonymization when necessary to ensure children’s safety.

The final pilot of the encyclopedia was created in collaboration with a design student who was using all the material produced by the children, the researchers, and the teachers, and illustrating the book. During the workshop, recordings, drawings, and pictures were produced and children’s thoughts on the workshop’s topic were conducted.

The workshops were low in cost due to the use of common materials and the “bricolage” approach. Funding was provided by the Food2Gather project mainly for working on the design of the encyclopedia.

Fig. 2. The Encycopaedia cover and some pages @ Naomé Déprez

Evaluation/Lessons learned

The plan is to disseminate the digital encyclopedia and evaluate the encyclopedia digitally with readers being able to leave comments.

It is important to promote and communicate about one’s project. Adapting the project to the rules when working with institutions and organizations, such as schools or asylum seeker centers, for example, is key. Collaborations with different partners require efforts to consider everyone’s needs and interests and to work towards a shared goal.

Pilot 2

Needs assessment and aims

The ethnographic fieldwork at the reception center with participant observation, conversations, and interviews showed that there are a lot of tensions and conflicts around food and the canteen. The issue is that the canteen is based on Belgium food preferences which are very different from children’s food preferences and likes. However, the people living at the reception center need to eat the food they are catered for several years while they are living there. The quality of the catering is often received as having poor quality. There are many rules tied to the food and people need to notify the canteen every day and show their badge to justify that they are still at the canteen every day. Food issues are a kind of arena for a lot of problems and food is another area for people in the reception center they do not have control of.

Action

The researchers organized workshops with residents of an asylum seeker center to improve the food experience at the canteen. Some of the asylum seekers worked in the canteen but only one chef attended. The workshops were hosted and facilitated by the researchers and the participants consisted of both the residents and the social workers. One of the chefs participated once but all the activities to be led in the kitchen were denforbidden because of sanitary Covid-19 restrictions. The aim was to create an understanding among the social workers that food is not only about feeding one’s body but also about a sense of home and memories tied to food habits, norms, and values for the residents. Furthermore, the idea of the workshop was to have a discussion to talk about the canteen and to gather ideas on ways to improve the canteen organization without breaking sanitary and hygienic rules. The workshops were realized on a monthly basis and at the end of the workshops, the participants wrote a letter to the staff of the center to share residents’ feelings and thoughts on food. The letter also presented recommendations on how to adapt the food at the canteen and improve the meals and children’s food. The letter also mentioned other issues that were connected such as hospitality. One of the researchers read the letter to the staff on behalf of the residents during the staff’s team meeting. The workshop and letter created a space for residents to voice their thoughts and feelings and lead to some surprised social workers learning about the resident’s perspectives.

Evaluation/Lessons learned

The pilot will be followed by the researchers qualitatively to evaluate the workshop. An important point is that sometimes there may not always be concrete activities that can be achieved during workshops but creating a space for different opinions is important. Dedicating time and space in an institution with many rules is valuable to discuss a topic. Adapting the workshop to the participants’ needs was important.