Making space: a case for unruly food pedagogies

This article addresses the intersection of food pedagogies and disability. In particular, we consider what happens when unruly disabled bodies are centered and made space for in pedagogical approaches to food and cooking. We draw on data from a larger project in a community food space in Melbourne, Australia, involving ethnographic observation (160 hours over 9 months), participation, and qualitative interviews (n = 12). Using Carla Rice’s concept of the “unruly body” and Manning’s proposition for an affect-driven “radical pedagogy,” we acknowledge the fragility of learning and its often meandering trajectory, paying particular attention to the embodied experiences of unruly bodies and their interactions with other bodies and objects in space. We demonstrate how inclusive, safe and convivial spaces/programs that are attentive and responsive to the embodied knowledges and capabilities of disabled bodies expand possibilities for food pedagogies by creating and centering non-didactic and affective possibilities for cooking in/with difference. We suggest that acknowledging these spaces and making visible these enactments are critical to more equitable, inclusive and transformative approaches to food pedagogies in practice and as a field of research.