Abstracts Category : Other

A Poetics of Food in the Bahamas: Intentional JourneysThrough Food, Consciousness, and the Aesthetic of EverydayLife

by Hilary B Booker

This research explores intentional food practices andjourneys of consciousness in a network of people in The Bahamas.Intentional food practices are defined as interactions with foodchosen for particular purposes, while journeys of consciousness arecumulative successions of events that people associate withhealing, restoration, and decolonization personally andcollectively. This research examines (1) experiences and momentsthat influenced peoples intentional food practices; (2) foodpractices that people enact daily; and (3) how peoples intentionalfood practices connect to broader spiritual, philosophical, andideological perspectives guiding their lives. The theoreticalframework emerges from a specific lineage of theories andphilosophies of hybridity, diaspora, creolization, poetics,critique, and aesthetics from the Caribbean. The research exploreshow intentional food practices reflect expressions of emergingfoodways and identities in the Caribbean and joins them with thehistory of consciousness and intentional food practices in Africanand Caribbean diasporas. Ethnographic research methods, poeticanalysis, and constant comparative analysis provided a foundationfor an exploratory approach grounded in the realities of everydaylives. A purposeful snowball sample of twenty-seven (27) in-depthsemi-structured interviews provided a primary method of datacollection, supported by personal journals, field notes, anddocument review. No food security research has been published thatexplores intentional food practices in The Bahamas generally or onthe island of New Providence specifically. Key findings suggest abroad variation in peoples intentional practices. The intentionsunderlying these practices reflect desires for individual andcollective healing, restoration, and decolonization in their dailylives. By exploring their food practices, interviewees express howthey find restoration and healing through visceral experiences withtheir bodies.Advisors/Committee Members: McCann, Elizabeth (Committee Chair).