'Migrant food, languages, and identities in the dawn of the post-Brexit and COVID-19 era' is a Participatory Research project funded by the Research England funds from the University of Westminster running from March until July 2022. The Principal Investigator is Petros Karatsareas, and the Co-Investigators are Anna Charalambidou (Middlesex University), Siria Guzzo (University of Salerno), and Vally Lytra (Goldsmiths University of London). Research Associates are Christina Flora, Rexhina Ndoci and Giulia Pepe, and Kleri Bakoura is Consultant on this project.
This project pilots a participatory sensory ethnographic methodology to study how migrants who work in Greek and Italian food and hospitality businesses use the languages they speak, the knowledge they have about Greek and Italian food, and their social networks of other migrants in order to respond to the challenges created by Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic (restrictions on workers’ migration, emigration of hospitality staff, pandemic-related restrictions on business operation, impact of the pandemic on workers’ health and well-being) as they seek to secure an income and better the financial and social situations of themselves and their families.
The methodological framework of sensory ethnography places the whole experiencing body at its core and innovatively rethinks participatory and collaborative ethnographic research techniques in terms of sensory perception, categories, meaning and values, ways of knowing, and everyday practices. Our sensory ethnography will be both researcher- and participant-led in that research materials will be co-produced by both researchers and participants.