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52FOOD DIVIDENDS OF MIGRATION: AGENTS OF CROSS-BORDERNESS
AND CULTURAL CONTINUITY
Tolstokorova A.V.
Alissa V. Tolstokorova, PhD, Associate Professor, Research expert, Independent Analytical Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine, e-mail: [email protected]
The paper looks at the issue of food in connection with migration, taking Ukraine as the case in point. In so doing, it places emphasis on the role that food plays in the construction of migrants' cultural experiences both as a tool of adjustment to a foreign milieu abroad, that is as an agent of cross-borderness, and as a means that enables the maintenance of cultural continuity with the homeland. To address food and migration nexus and to interpret food experiences of Ukrainian labor migrants the Bourdieu's concept of non-monetary capitals is employed to set out food capital as the one in its own right. In the context of migration, food capital is conceived as resultant from the exchange of "cultural capitals" between migrants and locals, which endows food dividends of migration, culinary and gastronomic dividends among them, the latter being regarded as a ramification of social dividends of migration.
Key words: Ukrainian labor migrants, food capital, food dividends of migration, agents of cross-borderness.
Research problem and methodology of the study
In this paper, I look at the issue of food in connection with migration, taking Ukraine as the case in point. In so doing, I place emphasis on the role that food plays in the construction of migrants' cultural experiences both as a tool of adjustment to a foreign milieu abroad, that is as an agent of cross-borderness, and as a means that enables the maintenance of cultural continuity with the homeland.
The transnational space of Ukrainian labour migration covers a wide range of various economic, social, and cultural practices that link together sending and receiving societies making respective effects on both sides of migration circuits. In conditions of ethnic and cultural barriers arising from migration, issues of food, diet and cuisine perform multiple functions.
First, being an embodiment of a "form of deep memory" (Klindienst, 2006, p. 145), they serve as "agents of memory" (Diner, 2001, p. 8) enabling the symbolic reconstruction of the "whole world of home" (Sutton, 2000) and as "cultural sites" (Fog Olwig, Hastrup, 1997) which become points of identification for people displaced by migrations.
Second, they are critical as agents of cross-borderness, that is, for sustaining social, cultural and kinship connections with the homeland and for alleviating homesickness and nostalgia (Matt, 2007) caused by cultural
distance between the sending and receiving societies and enabling guest workers "to consider a supposedly simpler and better time" (Greene, 2008, p. 42) when they were at home vis-a-vis the uncertainty of migrancy1.
Third, they are necessary for the const ruction of "otherness," a factor that reinforces both the sense of group identity and collective belonging for migrants (Gasparetti, 2009; Ferrara, 2011; Meza, 2013) as well as the process of their acculturation and integration into hosting societies (Fischler, 1988; Lévi-Strauss, 1986; De Lesdain, 2002).
Fourth, migrants' relocation to another country affects their social interactions in many ways, including the food they share within their families and with their friends. Their diets may change substantially in migration, which can have a tremendous impact on relationships with kith and kin left behind at home and on interactions within the transnational family space.
Last but not least, food and its related practices offer a window through which to examine the reconciliation of people's localized and place-based intimate experiences with globalizing forces (Mata-Codesal, Abranches, 2017).
These complex, multidimensional and syncretic ties between migrancy and food are still not sufficiently conceptualized and, therefore, require more focused attention which explains the social relevance of this study.
Analytical framework of the research. To address food and migration nexus and to interpret food experiences of Ukrainian labor migrants abroad I employ the Bourdieu's concept of non-monetary capitals (1986), and set out food capital as the one in its own right. I conceive it as the key analytical concepts to identify and interpret culinary, gastronomic, nutritional and other food experiences and practices of Ukrainian labour migrants in a foreign setting. These include the following issues:
- food status in migration (the degree of undernourishment or overeating, quality of food consumption by the individual (Manandhar et al., 2006, p. 19);
- food security (sufficiency of food and meals for an active and healthy life) (FAO, 2006, p. 1);
- taste autonomy (ability to follow one's own taste preferences and to have access to culturally preferred food);
- possibilities for culinary and gastronomic self-representations (self-expression through food and gastronomic preferences, demonstration
1 I refer to 'migrancy' rather than 'migration' as I am more concerned with travels abroad as a continuous process, a condition rather than a one-time phenomenon.
of culinary competences) vis-a-vis food deprivations (starvation, malnutrition, food insufficiency);
- eating exclusions (denial of the access to food and/or to individual or joint meals).
In the context of migration, I conceive food capital as resultant from the exchange of "cultural capitals" between migrants and locals which may endow to the former food dividends of migration, "culinary and gastronomic dividends" (To lstokorova, 2016) among them. I regard the latter as a ramification of "social dividends of migration"1 (Tolstokorova, 2013) understood as an added value of migratory experience in the form of individual non-monetary accumulations (social, ethic, cultural and esthetic, educational, civic, etc.) used by migrants for their own personal development and wellbeing. Respectively, I argue that food dividends of migration serve as an embodiment of new food-related experiences of guest workers enabled by the access to foreign food cultures through their migrancy and cross-borderness. As my field research showed, food dividends of migration may have both positive and negative implications for Ukrainians working abroad.
With this in mind, the main goal of this paper is to analyze the socio-cultural significance of food capital for Ukrainian labour migrants during their work abroad, placing special emphasis on the instrumentality of food dividends of migration and foreign experience as agents of cross-borderness, memory and cultural continuity. I argue that the social, and sometimes even the economic, implications of food capital of migration are both place-driven and are dependent on the geographic terrain of their investment; that is, whether they are used at home or abroad.
Methodology of the study. The findings herein draw on the results of a multi-staged field research, which encompassed non-participant observation, interviews and two focus group discussions with current and returnee migrants and members of their families, as well as interviews and two focus group discussions with experts.
In-depth interviewing and two focus groups discussions with 25 experts in issues of migration, gender and social policy was conducted in 2008 in Kyiv and Lviv together with British and Italian scholars for the project "Care-work and Welfare Internationalization: Transnational Scenarios and Prospects for the Future", carried out by CeSPI (Rome, Italy). Experts included NGO activists, journalists, researchers at research institutions and think-tanks, policy-makers at ministries, municipalities,
1 Social dividends of migration include such varieties as: social, ethic, cultural and aesthetic, educational, civic (Tolstokorova, 2013), gastronomic and culinary (Tolstokorova, 2016), medical and sanitary-hygienic (Tolstokorova, 2017), etc. used by migrants for the benefit of their personal development and wellbeing.
employment centres, embassies, and representatives of international organizations, such as International Organization for Migration and Amnesty International.
Interviewing of the target group of responders covered 43 Ukrainian labour migrants working in low-cost labour, members of their families and extended migrants' informal networks, mainly in urban communities (neighbors, relatives, co-workers). Among our responders were returnees and current migrants, that is, those who came home visiting from countries of work and circular migrants who temporarily stayed in Ukraine in-between voyages for employment abroad. Additionally, the group of responders included Ukrainian women involved in au-pair work in Austria and Germany.
In Ukraine, interviews were taken in Kherson, Kirovograd, Kyiv and small towns of Kherson oblast. Others were interviewed in the countries of work (Italy, Germany, Austria, France) or on board of a plane, at the airports lounges and in the airport shuttle buses during the author's international travels for academic gatherings abroad.
Additionally, two focus groups were organized with members of transnational families, including both migrants who came home visiting and their relatives left behind at home. Interviewing was drawing on a semi-structured questionnaire with open-ended questions, aimed to cover different stages of the migration cycle.
The interviewing process started with existing contacts with migrants and their families and in many cases followed with a snowball sampling method whereby new respondents were contacted through preceding respondents. Occasional meetings with potential responders were also welcome. Interviews were carried out in Ukrainian and Russian, but five experts, mainly international, were interviewed in English. Interviewing was made under the condition that real identities of the responders would not be disclosed in order to maintain their privacy. For that matter names of informants in this text were changed.
Results of non-participant observation represent a generalization of the author's experience of socialization among the target groups of responders. The data of field research were supplemented by the analysis of secondary theoretical sources and media overview.
This paper is a part of a larger multi-sited ongoing project with an overarching theme of gendered dimension of labour migration from Ukraine. Initially, the significance of food in migrants' daily life during their work abroad was not in the focus of this research. Yet, interviews showed that food, meals, diet and cuisine were among the key issues in migrants' narratives about their experiences in hosting societies. This prompted the need to pay closer attention to their analysis to be able to
better understand the social context and cultural semantics of existential aspects of migrants' foreign habitus.
The analysis in this paper is designed in the following format: first I cast light on positive food dividends of migration manifesting themselves by way of rising standards of food consumption due to migrancy. Then I analyze negative food dividends in migration secured due to the forfeiture of food capital. In the end I draw conclusions making emphasis on the emotional fee, which Ukrainian migrants pay for the benefits of their cross-border status.
Positive food dividends of migration: rising standards of food consumption due to migrancy
It has been argued that migrants change their food habits and priorities slower than other aspects of cultural life (Shiels, 2004). Although this might be true for some ethnic groups, the data from interviews in this study demonstrate that being abroad, Ukrainian guest workers are prone to master new standards and norms of food consumption. This stance is exemplified by the experience of Anastasia working in the service sector in Monaco:
"Our employer takes care for us to have good food. We have no grounds to complain. I am happy about all that I have. I had an opportunity to taste quite a few delicacies, those I could not even dream about at home. For instance, sea food which I cannot afford at home, although I live in Evpatoria <on the sea shore>. You see, here I can afford all these oysters and shrimps and even lobsters. During weekends, I go to the main street with other girls, and we go to Niece time and again, we go sightseeing, we go to excursions, to restaurants and we also buy goodies of all sorts. Oh, no, I have no problems with food. "
The significance of mastering the patterns of food consumption of the hosting society to increase one's own food standards was underscored by Anton, a professional marine cook, who worked with a team of Ukrainian builders in Portugal. During his sojourn there, he mastered some culinary secrets of local Portuguese ethnic cuisine, as he reveals:
"What I enjoyed in Portugal, is their cuisine. As first, it does not differ much from ours. In fact, they eat the same stuff as we do. Well, of course, they have some unique ethnic dishes, but this is mainly for holidays, but at work they had their meals together with us and had the same food as we did. They do not favor to all these porridges, noodles, all these pastas which we are used to. No. Their meal is very simple and healthy. For lunch, there is a huge piece of meat, the size of this plate, here. And lots of vegetables, stewed or boiled. And of course, a glass of wine is also welcome, if you wish. Meat is cheap there, not like here. And
wine is cheap. Have as much of it as you can. Ideal food for a male. It's nourishing, healthy and not heavy. Nothing is surplus and easy to cook. Good enough for a working man, for physical work. "
A responder Inna assessed her high food status which she could afford due to her wo rk as a domestic carer in Italy as a "ray of hope in the kingdom of darkness". When she was asked about her positive experience of migrancy, she replied:
"What is good here? Nothing is good. Sobbing from morning till night - this is what women have here. Because you have to toil as a workhorse and have no time for yourself, but only.... who cares? The only "ray of hope in the kingdom of darkness " it the payout day. It's only then that you can enjoy yourself. Then you just go shopping and relax. Then, in the evening, you can afford having your stomach full and maybe even have a small drink, just to warm your soul. And money... They vanish so quickly. So that your bliss lasts no more than one day and the next morning - you are on the ward again and all starts afresh. Again you are sobbing from morning till night, but so that nobody sees you in that condition."
For an ex-postgraduate student Larissa, the opportunity to augment her food status was the main argument in her decision to seek job in the UK where she studied at language courses. While studying in London she was moonlighting as a cleaner in a posh quarter of the British capital to be able to cover her travel and housing expenses and the course fee. After a while, she decided to overstay for some time to earn some more money necessary for her postgraduate studies. As a result, she made a decision not to come back home, but instead to remain living abroad, as she maintains:
"Yes, of course, it's true that this is not a high -status job. Can't even fancy myself at this position at home. But on the other hand, how much could I afford at home, being an assistant lecturer at the University? To count pennies and to economize your whole life at everything? But I had to take care to look well at lectures where so many eyes stare at you! But my salary and my Mom's retirement allowance, they were insufficient even to pay the rent and we had to take care not to kick the bucket from starvation. But here I do not limit myself in anything. Should I wish to have these... Gosh, what are they called in Russian? Oh, yah, I mean, shrimps, -no problem. Want to have olive oil - here you go. Fresh fruits and vegetables are available all along the winter - welcome to eat as much as you can. Could I afford all this at home? But here I have no headache in what concerns food. I earn enough to afford whatever I might wish ".
The data of interviewing align with the data of media overview. Thus, a newspaper article by Srelkova (2006) mentions a migrant woman Galya, who proudly confirms that both her social and food status rose considerably due to her work in Italy:
"What did I see there, in my Podgorye village? Cows and kitchen gardens... And this is it, it's all I had from morning till night. But here I have a shower twice a day and for dinner have not potatoes with lard but fruits. And I can afford all that I want. "
Thus, the opportunity to gain food security and to increase one's food status may not only serve as the decisive factors underpinning migratory decisions, but may even outwait the loss of social status resultant from migration. To put it otherwise, the access to quality food consumption may have for migrants the significance of Bourdieu's "symbolic capital" which ensures the rate of food consumption equal to that of middle class and compensating migrants' poor status on the labour market of a low paid work force.
As my field research showed, Ukrainian migrants regard their work abroad not only as a strategy to secure economic and material wellbeing, but also as a possibility to see the world, to access new standards of life, to rise their awareness about foreign cultures. Thus, for women positive food dividends of migration consisted in a possibility to learn the ethnic culture and traditions of food, eating and meals at hosting societies, to master advanced technologies of household management, to g et in command of new ways of procession, cooking and consumption of traditional meals and to enjoy "exotic" cuisines. This is bri lliantly portrayed in the books by Ukrainian migrant women and writers, such as Oxana Drachkovs'ka (2008), a child-carer in Spain and Natalya Zgod'ko (2013), a domestic worker in Italy and a former school principal. Both these women-authors and my informants underscored the significance of their new food capital earned abroad for their social and feminine status.
This often entailed the perfection of women's cooking standards and eating habits. Respectively, these gains increased their "gastronomic capital" which I understand as a spectrum of taste sensualities, la palette des goûts of a person gained through a variety of gastronomic experiences due to the access to different food cultures, ethnic cuisines, culinary arts (especially exquisite and outlandish) (Tolstokorova, 2016, p. 73). An informant Polina intimated a story of earning her own food dividends while working as a domestic in Italy:
"At first, when I was laying the table together with my woman -employer, I took some things very personally, because they were bizarre to me. Say, I did not know what to answer when she asked me if 100 grams of spaghetti was enough for me for lunch. How could I know? I have never measured it that way. I used to measure it by a spoon... I was bewildered. You see, before boiling spaghetti she was making sure not to put in the p ot more food than was necessary to have no leftovers! But how could I know how much exactly I needed not to feel hungry? We are not used to such
things in Ukraine. At home I never weight food before cooking... If there are leftovers after lunch or dinner, I keep them in the fridge and next time just heat them before eating and do not bother over fresh meals. Well, I tell her: "OK, let it be 100 grams". But when she fixed it I realized that it was too few! I had to leave the table being hungry! Yet, I was too shy to ask for another helping. Gosh! What a greedy person! Counting every piece of spaghetti! But later I understood that it was not her greed, but a culinary tradition. Their rule is that the food has to be eaten FRESH ONLY! No leftovers, no heating! <..> This is what I learned from her. And although it is a long time since I had moved away from her, I weight spaghetti before I cook":
An observation of this sort was also made by the above-mentioned Ivan. His experience of food deprivation, paradoxically, enabled him to gain his food dividends via the increase of food consumption standards:
"You see, they (locals) chuck away quite good staff <... .> It turned out that they never consume leftovers. As soon as food expires, it immediately goes to the trash-bin. Even if it is only one day overdue, they will never fix it. At first it was just fun for us- ha, these suckers, they don't know how to make sense of life! But then we got used to it, just accepted it. Now, if some food is not real fresh, we get rid of it too. "
These interviews are indicative of positive cultural implications of even precarious food dividends gained abroad as long as they serve to awareness-raising about high standards and norms of food consumption that eventually incur positive food dividends enabling migrants to improve their nutrition status.
Forfeiture of food capital: negative food dividends in migration
One of the most challenging issue for migrants, refugees, and other geographically displaced people is the ability to access familiar and culturally acceptable or preferable foods - because of availability and accessibility due to cost, transportation, language proficiency, etc. (Bose, Laramee, 2011; Vahabi, Damba, 2013). According to the data of sociological polls, 36.1% of young Ukrainians, who had the experience of working abroad, had no opportunities to have food that matched their requirements and preferences (MUFChY, 2004, p. 82). Quite a few informants intimated that they had experienced dearth of foods and socio-cultural food deprivations. This experience was especially common at the initial stage of their migration cycle. This was the case with Ivan, who had left for earnings to Portugal in the early 1990s with a group of Ukrainian guest workers. For a travel by a shuttle bus, he needed at least $400 to cover travel expenses and lodging upon arrival. To secure this sum, the family had to sell out all the valuables they owned. On the way to the place
of destination, the shuttle bus was attacked by robbers and the travelers were left not only penniless, but even without any food and warm clothes. Upon arrival, Ukrainians had to work without remuneration throughout the first month to be able to pay their rent. As a result, they had no money for food. Struggling with starvation, guest workers had to pick up food leavings from trash bins. As he recalls:
"During the first week there, when I was walking to my job place... there were trash bins all along. So, what would you do if you were as hungry as a wolf? Here you pick up a piece of bread, there you pick up something else, in trash bins. And you know, it was a good idea, it saved me from starvation. Sometimes I even had my belly full! But I did not pick up inedible food, no! I could not afford abasing myself that way.... Say, once I found a full package of steaks, unpacked. Oh, what a luck! Why is it here? Perhaps it expired and she got rid of it?! I tasted it and it was all right! Very delicious! That day I stuffed myself real full!"
An example of positive cultural implications associated with precarious food experience abroad is the story told by Oleg, who was traveling in search for work across Southern Europe for over a year. During his pilgrimage, he often had no place to stay overnight, and had to sleep in parks, churchyards, or railway stations, either with empty stomach or stilling hunger by leavings from trash bins. Revealed through Oleg's own words, this salient experience of residential and food deprivation strengthened his will-power and enabled him to secure survival skills, necessary in his struggle for his own place under the Sun. Eventually, he found work in Australia and, soon, his family rejoined with him in Sydney. In his interview, he underlined that he was proud to discover new strengths in himself, which allowed him to overcome all of the constraints on his way to success and to secure a quality education and a happy future for his daughter in Australia.
Women had their own stories of negative food dividends in the form of food deprivations, although most of them worked and lived in families, not on streets as some men. This was showcased by both current field research and by other studies (Degiuli, 2007). Thus, an informant Natalya worked as a domestic carer in Greece and, in compliance with her contract, had full board and lodging in the employer's house. Although she was happy about her food and found it delicious and even exotic, in fact her diet contained mainly vegetables and fruit. But it lacked meat, fish, dairy products and even bakery, because her employer was reluctant to spend money on her food. In conditions of hard physical work, a lack of proteins in this woman's diet resulted in undernourishment, frequent fainting, and weight loss of over 40 pounds throughout two years of work. Likewise, an informant Lena, as her brother intimated, "left to Italy as a well -fed woman
in her full health, but came back home looking as a scraggy teenager". Another interviewee, Larissa, recalled that when she came back home from earnings in Italy, she looked so exhausted, skinny, and had aged and changed so much, that she was not identified as the owner of her own passport, being accused of using forged papers. It was only after her relatives and friends had confirmed her identity to the authorities, that she was recognized as the owner of her papers.
In many instances women faced limitations to their natural right to food autonomy when they were required by employers to accept the eating habits of the hosting families and were not allowed to cook for themselves or even to keep the food of their own choice in the house. These situations confirm the argument by Sollund that the option to choose for oneself what and when to eat that most adults take for granted, may be severely restricted for people living under the control of others and thus may become a topic for attention, reflection and loss for people who unexpectedly find themselves deprived of this right (Sollund 2012, p. 78).
Thus, at the stage of non-participant observation, an informant Mila told me a story about a woman who had to come back from earnings in the USA, because she had lost her job as a result of an attempt to cook meals for herself in the employer's house. She was invited to work as a domestic by her employer on the condition that she would not have her own meals. Her employer, an elderly affluent woman, could not tolerate the smell of food in her house and preferred eating out. For a woman-domestic the lack of a possibility to cook for herself and to have the food of her own choice was a challenge, considering that she could not join her employer for meals, and had to eat only what the former gave her for meals. Being nostalgic for her favourite Ukrainian food, the woman sometimes fixed her own meals, while her employer was away from home, trying not to leave any signs of her secret culinary ventures. Yet, once her employer came back home unexpectedly and smelled the food which her servant has just finished cooking. After a fierce confrontation, Mila was fired. Having neither residence permit, nor friends in the country, she had to come back home practically penniless. This situation evidences that the issue of food is indicative of absence of employers' proneness to perceive domestic workers as human beings with their own existential needs (Hondagneu-Sotello, 2007). Migrant women themselves interpret it as an infringement on their personal autonomy, as was showcased by Degiuli (2007, p. 199):
"I worked for the same family for seven years, mostly to take care of the wife, but she passed away. The husband keeps reducing my hours because he feels that he doesn't need me as much, but the thing I really don 't like is the fact that he keeps insisting that we eat together at lunch, but he doesn't pay me for that time and I don't think it's right. I loved to
work for his wife, because she treated me so well, she treated me like a relative, more as if she was my mother, but with the husband it's not the same " (Lucha, a 51-year-old Peruvian woman).
This confirms the hypothesis that the feeling of hunger is not always due to the lack of food, but rather the feeling of detachment that migration may induce (Sollund, 2012, p. 79). This also showcases that food may operate as a nonverbal means of communication in conjunction with both verbal aspects of dining and various contexts of eating and may be used to influence others by signifying meanings (Greene, 2008, p. 34).
Tamara, a live-in caregiver for an elderly man in an Italian family and a part-time cleaner, also had the experience of food deprivation because her employer did not welcome her own food in the house and her cooking for herself. Tamara could only share meals with the old man for whom she was providing care. The woman conceived this situation as denigrating for herself, when she explains:
"Of course, I am happy to be able to taste Italian food and to learn cooking Italian cuisine, but my employer says that I may have meals only with the family or with my elderly client. I mean, I may eat as much as I can, but only together with them and only what they have, but cannot have my own food, the food of my choice. They were not happy when they saw me having snacks between meals. But, you know, I am used to eat whenever I want and whatever I want. So, it happens that, say, at lunchtime I don't want to eat but a couple of hours later I feel hungry. In such cases what I do is just pick up a slice of bread or a piece of banana from the table, stuck it in my pocket, then find an excuse to sneak into my room and swallow it there. And sob bitterly while eating".
This interview showcases that, while for some employers the invitation to share meals is considered a convivial gesture and an attempt to break down the barriers between employers and employees, for others it may be a way to control and determine what the employee can eat and when (Degiuli, 2007, p. 200). Even when the invitation to share family meals is sincere, and is not mandatory, it is may be perceived by servants as an attempt of employers to exercise control over them (Burikova, Miller, 2010) and may entail collisions (Sollund, 2012). Migrant women overcome them by exerting strategies and tactics of resistance to limitations on their food autonomy. One example of the conspiracy tactics used by migrants was related by Ludmila, a domestic worker in Italy, who told a story of her Ukrainian friend Lena. According to Ludmila,
"She (Lena) said that her employer did not allow her to keep her own food in the house. But she was young, you know, and often craved the traditional food she used to have at home. So, she would go to those vans, you know, where they sell Ukrainian food to our people here and buy
something that Italians don't have. Back in the employer's house, she would go to the bathroom, turn on the water loud so that her family thought she was taking a bath, but instead she would gulp the food down. To keep it secret, before leaving the bathroom she would hide the tins or the wrappers of the food at the bottom of the trash-bin so that the family would not see anything, because otherwise she would have had a real trouble!" (Tolstokorova, 2016, p. 75-76):
Hence, food deprivation per se, and the attitude to it by live-in migrant women, is indicative of the quality of social relations in the employer's house as a site of work. In conditions of multidimensional hierarchical nature of labour relations the situation of food deprivation may entail respective resistance strategies by women-domestics. This stance was confirmed by the materials of Ukrainian media (Medvedeva, 2013):
"Once, my brother's wife, she worked in the estate of rich people, was leaving home for vacations and invited me to take over her place to work for them. She fetched me to an old Italian man. He told me: "I will give you a bowl of soup and housing. The rest is your responsibility". But the wage had to arrive only after a month! How could I survive till that time? He did not give me even a piece of bread and I was starving. Well, I had to pick up a piece of bread or something, then sneak to the toilet and swallow it there. Yet, I repented that and then confessed to my pastor in the church how bad it feels to turn into a thief at my age. But otherwise I would collapse from starvation!... " (Maria, a domestic worker in Italy).
The above two interviews are illustrative of the observation that some categories of migrant communities, in particular women-domestics, living under the watchful eyes of their employers, are especially vulnerable to the experience of migratory loss. When the challenge of migration is combined with moving into someone else's house, wherein the person finds herself in a mixed set of unclear roles: as a guest, as a fictive family member and as an employee, this challenge is likely to aggravate (Sollund, 2012, p. 78).
Conclusion
As this study suggests, the experience of foreign food, diet and cuisine acquired during their work abroad acquires for migrants the significance of agents of cross-borderness and cultural continuity. For one, it epitomizes the "imaginary West" (Yurchak, 2006), brought to them through western goods, popular culture and "foodsapes" (Carolan, 2017). For the other, it serves not only to mark boundaries and frontiers of identity, but also to reconnect with the past and across spaces and places, that is, with an "imagined home". Even more than that, food - as a carrier of tradition, nostalgia, and identity - connects people to place in both old
ways and new (Bose, Laramee, undated, p. 2), that is, it connects migrants to both their new home abroad and their old home in the country of origin.
The research reveals that migrants may have both positive and negative experiences connected to their foodways when they work abroad. Respectively, they may earn both positive and negative food dividends of migration. Many Ukrainians valued a cognitive aspect of their sojourn abroad for a possibility to familiarize themselves with food cultures of their recipient societies, others appreciated the opportunity to improve their norms and standards of food consumption, to gain food dividends through new culinary skills and competences and gastronomic practices. Despite that, some of them, when they worked abroad confronted food deprivations. These could be physiological, that is, in the form of undernourishment or even starvation, dearth of healthy, safe, nutritious and culturally-acceptable food, etc. They could also be socio-cultural, that is, in the form of limitations to their food autonomy and control of their food consumption and preferences by employers.
Some migrants conceived these challenges as an unavoidable emotional fee, which they had to pay for the financial and material benefits that they secured due to foreign employment. Others regarded them as a manifestation of social inequalities pertaining to labor relations on the migrant labor market and considered them as a temporal nuisance, which can be confronted by patience and endurance. For some others, these impediments signified the humiliation of their subordinate position in social hierarchies and they refused to accept by them creating non-conflict strategies and tactics of resistance, which enables them to preserve human dignity and personal autonomy.
The research also revealed some gender specificities in migrants' food dividends. For example, what mattered more for women were their culinary dividends. Some women acquired them in the countries of work in the form of learning new skills and ways of cooking ethnic cuisines of the hosting cultures. Conversely, other women managed to expose their own "culinary capital" brought from Ukraine to native populations in recipient societies which secured them new social and even financial capital in countries of work. Some Ukrainian men also received food dividends by mastering the basics of gastronomic cultures of hosting societies and trying to invest them into their own businesses at home. But if in the countries of work their ventures were likely to succeed, in Ukraine, migrants could not find possibilities for the investment of their food dividends. This suggests that the socio-cultural value of migrants' food capital and respectiv e food dividends of migration are pinned on place, i.e. the locale where they are invested - in the recipient society or at home. As follows from the results of this field research, food dividends of migration may be productive in the
countries of work , but they are not always valued at home and returnee
workers face tangible constraints trying to use them in Ukraine.
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ПИЩЕВЫЕ ДИВИДЕНДЫ МИГРАЦИИ: АГЕНТЫ ТРАНСГРАНИЧНОСТИ
И КУЛЬТУРНОГО КОНТИНУУМА
Толстокорова А.В.
Толстокорова Алиса Валерьевна, канд. филол. наук, доцент, научный эксперт, Независимый аналитический центр, Киев, Украина, e-mail: [email protected]
В статье рассматривается малоизученная тема пищевых практик трудовых мигрантов. Она анализируется в контексте трудовой миграции из Украины. Основное внимание уделяется роли питания и пищи в адаптации мигрантов к новому окружению за рубежом, после пересечения государственных границ, т. е. в их функции как «агентов трансграничности», а также как средства, позволяющего сохранять культурную связь с родиной. При этом в качестве концептуальной основы используется теория немонетарных капиталов Пьера Бурдье, на основе которой выделяется «пищевой капитал» как одна их разновидностей немонетарных капиталов. Предполагается, что в контексте миграции этот вид капитала является результатом культурного обмена между мигрантами и местным населением принимающих стран, что приносит
мигрантам соответствующие «пищевые дивиденды миграции», в том числе кулинарные и гастрономические дивиденды. Последние, в свою очередь, являются разновидностями выделенных автором ранее социальных дивидендов миграции.
Ключевые слова: украинская трудовая миграция, пищевой каптал, пищевые дивиденды миграции, агенты трансграничности.
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MUFChY (2004). Specificities of external labour migration of youth in current conditions. Kyiv: Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Children and Youth.
Shiels, J. (2004). Cooking stories. Victoria, Australia: The Immigration Museum.
Sollund, R.A. (2012). Chapter 5. The Essence of Food and Gender and the Embodiment of Migration. Advances in Ecopolitics. In: Ed. R.A. Sollund. Transnational Migration, Gender and Rights, vol. 10, pp. 77-98. Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
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Tolstokorova, A. (2017). Sanitary-hygienic and medical dividends as varieties of social dividends of labour migration in issues of health. Medical Anthropology and Bioethics, No 1 (13), 2017. Retrieved from http: //www. medanthro. ru/?page_id=309
Tolstokorova, A. (2016). "To You it Shall be For Meat": A Transcultural Perspective on Foodways of Ukrainian Transnational Migrants. The TRANSverse Journal, issue 15 "The Food Issue/ La bouffe en question", pp. 70-91.
Tolstokorova, A. (2013). Social Dividends of Migrants: The case of Ukrainian transnational migration." Journal of Social Policy 6 (10), pp.147-196. Retrieved from
www.fzf.ukim.edu.mk/files/00doktorski/Socijalna_politika-Revija_10.pdf
Vahabi, M., Damba, C. (2013). Perceived Barriers in Accessing Food Among Recent Latin American Immigrants in Toronto. International Journal for Equity in Health, 12 (1), pp. 1-11.
Yurchak, A. (2006). Everything was Forever, Until it was No More:The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton University Press.
Zgod'ko N. (2013). Неитальянка в Италии. Toronto: Altaspera Publishing & Literary Agency.
