What roles does food play in creating public spaces and opportunities for people to meet and live together?

This is one of the main issues of FOOD2GATHER, a European research project where we will especially focus on the interplay between migration, food practices, and places.

FOOD2GATHER will also help to better understand:

– how European host societies – both institutions and common citizens – place new migrants (refugees, displaced populations, newcomers, etc.), and how migrants place themselves in public spaces.

– to what extent and in what ways food is a vector or an obstacle for the inclusion and exclusion processes of migrant populations in European societies.

– how can the concept of foodscapes contribute to shaping relations, facilitating communication and reflecting changes between public spaces and people.

FOOD2GATHER promotes cooperation between researchers, stakeholders and the civil society through joint learning and interactive collaboration. FOOD2GATHER does not isolate theory but combines the concepts as they arise from our various forms of research: Meetups and get-togethers will always have a moment of reflection, where we aim to conceptualize the foodscapes as we see them unfold.

This project has received funding from HERA JPR Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement number 769478