• norsk
    • English
  • English 
    • norsk
    • English
  • Login
View Item 
  •   Home
  • Senter for velferds- og arbeidslivsforskning (SVA)
  • SVA - Norwegian Social Research (NOVA)
  • View Item
  •   Home
  • Senter for velferds- og arbeidslivsforskning (SVA)
  • SVA - Norwegian Social Research (NOVA)
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Street food as an ethnic border: Kebab as a symbol of home among young Swedish migrants in Oslo

Tolgensbakk, Ida
Journal article, Peer reviewed
Published version
Thumbnail
View/Open
Tolgensbakk+AoF+2018.pdf (10.42Mb)
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10642/6960
Date
2018
Metadata
Show full item record
Collections
  • SVA - Norwegian Social Research (NOVA) [489]
Original version
Tolgensbakk, I. (2018). Street food as an ethnic border: Kebab as a symbol of home among young Swedish migrants in Oslo. Anthropology of Food,12  
Abstract
The background for this study is migrants’ shared problems of finding familiar or culturally important foodstuffs, as well as the tendency for foodstuffs and cuisines to become emblematic symbols for minority groups. The case in question is young Swedish labour migrants living in Oslo in the first decades after 2000, and the article discusses how one specific dish – the German-Turkish döner kebab – is used as symbolic border-marker towards Norwegians by Oslo Swedes. My aim is to explain how an arguably originally Middle Eastern dish could take on such a surprising role among Nordic youth. The study is based on fieldwork on a large Facebook group for Swedes in Oslo, conducted from 2008 onwards. This is supplemented by a media study exploring the trajectory and perception of kebab in Scandinavia. The döner kebab, invented in Germany in the 1970s, has become a semi-international dish, changing according to local tastes in different countries. While it is strongly associated with postcolonial migration in Europe, I show that it has taken on somewhat differing symbolic values in different countries. In Scandinavia, among these specific migrants, at a certain point in time, knowing what a good, Swedish kebab should taste like has become an identity marker. The döner kebab has become important in establishing an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ for Swedes living among Norwegians. As such, it is a good example of the relative arbitrariness of banal nationalism, and of identity formation in urban, internationally-oriented but locally lived youth culture.
Publisher
Anthropology of Food
Series
Anthropology of Food;12
Journal
Anthropology of Food

Contact Us | Send Feedback

Privacy policy
DSpace software copyright © 2002-2019  DuraSpace

Service from  Unit
 

 

Browse

ArchiveCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDocument TypesJournalsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDocument TypesJournals

My Account

Login

Statistics

View Usage Statistics

Contact Us | Send Feedback

Privacy policy
DSpace software copyright © 2002-2019  DuraSpace

Service from  Unit