‘Food is culture, but it's also power’: the role of food in ethnic and gender identity construction among Goan Canadian women

Foodwork and women's primary responsibility for foodwork have long been interpreted by feminist scholars as a site of gender oppression for women; yet the gendered meanings of foodwork are complicated when race, diaspora and ethnic identity are also taken into account. This article examines the meaning of food and foodwork for Goan women in Toronto, Canada, and the role of food in creating and maintaining distinctly gendered ethnic identities. Catholic Goan identity, born from Portuguese colonization of an area in what is now Western India, has few unique markers of ethnic distinction from other Indians. In this context Goan cuisine takes on a particular symbolic significance. In this qualitative study with first-generation Canadian Goan women (N = 13) the gendered role of women in foodwork was seen as having particular power or ‘currency’ within the family and community, valued for fostering and supporting Goan identity. We argue that the same foodwork practices that constitute gendered oppression for women may simultaneously confer a form of ‘culinary capital’ within the social arena of their own diasporic community.