Making and selling Greek food in London: Migrant hospitality professionals talk about food authenticity over dinner
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Anna Charalambidou
Abstract
The 2007/2008 financial crisis more than doubled the number of Greek nationals in London (Pratsinakis et al. 2020). This transformation is visible in London’s foodscapes, as the number of Greek restaurants in the city boomed over the last decade, which was also marked by Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper, based on a Research England-funded project, shows how professionals in London’s Greek food businesses oscillated between competitive and solidarity positionings in conversations over dinner. The data were collected in focus group interactions and using multi-sited, participatory, multisensory ethnographic tools (Pink 2015). Five Greek hospitality workers and four researchers participated in discussions that took place over dinner in three Greek restaurants in London; these were followed by two online conversations. The data were analysed using concepts from Membership and Conversation Analysis (Smith, Fitzgerald and Housley 2021; Mondada 2018) to examine the negotiation of categorisations situated in the glocal economic conditions. Participants claimed, ascribed and negotiated a range of professional roles (from novice to expert) and other regional and social class identities and contrasting positionings vis-à-vis what is considered “Greek” food, including juxtapositions between homecooked and professionally prepared food and contrasting constructions of authenticity, tradition, and modernity in Greek food and hospitality. At the same time, participants also constructed some solidarity positionings as joint members of the Greek food hospitality industry in the UK, looking to forge shared networks that would help them face the shared challenges in staffing and costs created by the wider economic and political forces of Brexit and the post- Covid recession. The participants’ limits as to how far they were prepared to go in terms of making intra-sector alliances at a time of crisis provides a glimpse into the wider neoliberal context of the UK (food) market of free competition, gig economy, and gentrification.
Abstract
The 2007/2008 financial crisis more than doubled the number of Greek nationals in London (Pratsinakis et al. 2020). This transformation is visible in London’s foodscapes, as the number of Greek restaurants in the city boomed over the last decade, which was also marked by Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper, based on a Research England-funded project, shows how professionals in London’s Greek food businesses oscillated between competitive and solidarity positionings in conversations over dinner. The data were collected in focus group interactions and using multi-sited, participatory, multisensory ethnographic tools (Pink 2015). Five Greek hospitality workers and four researchers participated in discussions that took place over dinner in three Greek restaurants in London; these were followed by two online conversations. The data were analysed using concepts from Membership and Conversation Analysis (Smith, Fitzgerald and Housley 2021; Mondada 2018) to examine the negotiation of categorisations situated in the glocal economic conditions. Participants claimed, ascribed and negotiated a range of professional roles (from novice to expert) and other regional and social class identities and contrasting positionings vis-à-vis what is considered “Greek” food, including juxtapositions between homecooked and professionally prepared food and contrasting constructions of authenticity, tradition, and modernity in Greek food and hospitality. At the same time, participants also constructed some solidarity positionings as joint members of the Greek food hospitality industry in the UK, looking to forge shared networks that would help them face the shared challenges in staffing and costs created by the wider economic and political forces of Brexit and the post- Covid recession. The participants’ limits as to how far they were prepared to go in terms of making intra-sector alliances at a time of crisis provides a glimpse into the wider neoliberal context of the UK (food) market of free competition, gig economy, and gentrification.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Language in strange and familiar places: A short introduction 1
- The eternal and the ephemeral 9
- Language preservation in strangely familiar places: How traditional skills have helped preserve Shaetlan 39
- Hidden landscapes and the images of the “unseen”: from north-west Amazonia to the Middle Sepik region of New Guinea 75
- The intersection of language, religion, identity, and scholarship: Opportunities for the revitalization of Ge’ez 131
- Speaking of oneself in multi-term evidential systems: From the Himalayas to Amazonia 149
- Ideological and communicative perspectives on divination amongst the people of Northern Ghana 193
- Beyond participants–researchers–research outsiders: food talk and the (co-)construction of knowledge in multi-sited participatory ethnography 223
- Making and selling Greek food in London: Migrant hospitality professionals talk about food authenticity over dinner 257
- Feierabendziegel: Roof tiles with celestial bodies on them, and how they are relevant for understanding experiences of contingency 287
- Index of authors 329
- Index of subjects 335
- Index of languages, language families, areas, and peoples 339
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Language in strange and familiar places: A short introduction 1
- The eternal and the ephemeral 9
- Language preservation in strangely familiar places: How traditional skills have helped preserve Shaetlan 39
- Hidden landscapes and the images of the “unseen”: from north-west Amazonia to the Middle Sepik region of New Guinea 75
- The intersection of language, religion, identity, and scholarship: Opportunities for the revitalization of Ge’ez 131
- Speaking of oneself in multi-term evidential systems: From the Himalayas to Amazonia 149
- Ideological and communicative perspectives on divination amongst the people of Northern Ghana 193
- Beyond participants–researchers–research outsiders: food talk and the (co-)construction of knowledge in multi-sited participatory ethnography 223
- Making and selling Greek food in London: Migrant hospitality professionals talk about food authenticity over dinner 257
- Feierabendziegel: Roof tiles with celestial bodies on them, and how they are relevant for understanding experiences of contingency 287
- Index of authors 329
- Index of subjects 335
- Index of languages, language families, areas, and peoples 339
