Manger au temps du Covid: ethnographies urbaine et rurale auprès de personnes migrantes et immigrantes, minorisées, dans le Bordelais Eating during Covid-19: urban and rural ethnographies with minorized migrants and immigrant people in the Bordeaux region

Abstract

This article is based on ethnographic work carried out in the area of Bordeaux within the frame of the European project Food2gather dealing with food and migration. We explore the food practices of people in situation of precariousness, mostly exiles, migrants, undocumented workers, settling in the Bordeaux area, not as a “social and cultural isolate” [Abélès 1996; Althabe 1985], but as part of the global foodscape [Dolphijn 2004; Watson 2013]. This concept enables us to examine the multifarious dimensions of food, from field to fork and beyond, as well as the economic, political, social and symbolic aspects involved. Through diversified and complementary fieldwork methods, both in urban and rural contexts, we investigate the mobilisations and solidarities deployed by militants and volunteers defending the cause of people in situation of migration and ethnic or social minorization. We unveil, through the prism of food, the social injustices, particularly during the Covid-19 crisis. By illustrating how agriculture, food, migration and solidarities are closely interrelated, we highlight how the various food itineraries provide information in terms of unequal rights, social (in)justice and unequal values conferred to lives and bodies