Food, memory and identity among Kashmiri diaspora: women, culinary practices and cultural continuity

Diaspora is marked by processes of displacement, fragmentation and the continuous negotiation of identity and belonging. Within such contexts, everyday cultural practices acquire heightened significance as mediums through which connections to the homeland are sustained. Food, in particular, operates as an embodied cultural practice through which memory, identity and belonging are actively constructed rather than passively inherited. This paper examines the role of Kashmiri women in preserving, adapting, and transmitting culinary traditions within the Kashmiri diaspora across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Drawing on qualitative data from 44 Kashmiri women and adopting a phenomenological approach, the study reveals that Kashmiri women occupy a central position as custodians of culinary knowledge transmitting recipes and techniques across generations through both embodied practice and digital platforms, creatively substituting ingredients within host societies, and sustaining cross-community bonds through shared meals and food-centered gatherings. Culinary practices emerge as deeply embodied forms of memory, reconnecting participants with particular places, relationships and moments from the past through taste, smell and cooking. At the same time, challenges such as language barriers, the untranslatability of embodied culinary knowledge, and generational shifts complicate this transmission. The study moves beyond viewing food merely as a marker of ethnic identity to reveal it as a dynamic site of agency, cultural reproduction and belonging one that is continuously negotiated across generations and geographical boundaries.