{"id":2971,"date":"2019-11-13T11:42:43","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T11:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2971"},"modified":"2019-11-13T11:48:23","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T11:48:23","slug":"brexit-and-gastronationalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2971","title":{"rendered":"Brexit and Gastronationalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2018Gastronationalism\u2019 is the idea that there are distinctive and authentic national food cultures that are threatened by the forces of globalisation. It is a myth. But as shown by debates on the politics of food and Brexit, gastronationalism can have powerful political effects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nidentification of a nation with the food it eats has played a significant role\nin forming and reproducing national identity. Once a marker of a public<\/em> or civic\nidentity; today food has come to be regarded as a cultural commodity to be\nconsumed much like music, TV shows and video games.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gastronationalism,\nin particular, is not simply the idea that particular kinds of food or drink\nare exclusive to certain nations, but that nations possess distinctive and\nauthentic food cultures<\/em> that need to be protected from foreigners.\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngastronationalist imaginary<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Any serious\nscrutiny of the proposal that there are distinctive national food cultures soon\nsees it crumble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take Italian food, for example. There is no such thing as an Italian national cuisine. What we know as \u2018Italian\u2019 food today is a recent historical construct<\/a> based on Italian cities and regions and the political and economic connections and conflicts between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, around\nthe world there are only kinds of food and styles of eating that relate to\nregion and locality, and that are mediated in diverse ways by class, religious\nand ethnic identity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the idea<\/em> of\na national cuisine has important effects on our political, economic, and\ncultural life. Eating and drinking allows us to identify with other people in\nthe nation even when we will only ever meet and interact with a small\nproportion of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nrise of \u2018British\u2019 food<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In Britain,\nthe idea of a distinctive British national food culture has grown up only in\nvery recent times, indeed in a period that largely coincides with the UK\u2019s\nmembership of the European Union. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain has\ncome to distinguish its cuisine from \u2018European\u2019 or \u2018Continental\u2019 cuisine by\nforming its identity in relation not just to its European, but to its colonial\nother. In fact, British gastronationalism, like British nationalism, can also\nbe seen as a product of imperialism. Britain as an imperial project was pulling\nEngland away from Europe a long time before Brexit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, authentic British food is seen as multicultural, reflecting the importance of Britain\u2019s colonial heritage. <\/a>This hybridity has been consciously highlighted and celebrated without<\/em> abandoning some conception of authenticity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV chefs such\nas Gary Rhodes and Rick Stein were not truly orchestrating the retrieval of an\nauthentic historic British food culture, but inventing it for largely\ncommercial purposes. Of course, they drew on elements of \u2018traditional\u2019 British\ncuisine, or more accurately, local and regional elements. But these were not\nthe traditions of a singular British food culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chlorinated\nchicken <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Debates about food and Brexit have centred on questions of food trade, sovereignty, and safety. But it is important to recognise that these matters are tied up in the sentiments of gastronationalism too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example,\nthere are reasonable objections to importing chlorinated chicken from the US,\neven though there is no evidence it is in itself harmful to human health. Of\ncourse, most people object just because it sounds awful; a symbol of a cruel,\nprofit hungry, global agribusiness. But at base there is a visceral response to\nit because of a long?standing fear of the food of others as polluted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fish and\nchips<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As Brexit and the politics of food shows us, populism and gastronationalism go hand in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both fish and\nchips and chicken tikka masala give lie to the idea of authentic national\ncuisines. They both stem from \u2018foreign\u2019 food practices, practices themselves\nthat are the product of food hybridities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is the symbolic<\/em> value of fish and chips and chicken tikka masala that are important, and there are two quite distinct narratives of Brexit and gastronationalism at play here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethno?nationalists\nseek the restoration of a cultural Britishness that is supposed to pre?date our\nmembership of the EU. For them, fish and chips is an authentically British\ndish, exclusive to these islands and the fuel of a glorious past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, fish\nand chips allows us to be economically self?sufficient. We have plentiful fish\nin British fishing waters and we grow potatoes in abundance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicken tikka\nmasala <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In contrast,\na chicken tikka masala Brexit might be thought symbolic of a hyper neo?liberal\nBrexit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicken tikka\nmasala relies on importing rice and spices. It is advocated by those who want a\n\u2018Global Britain\u2019 contributing to the production of lucrative food commodities\nfor both domestic and export markets, but also prioritising Britain\u2019s trade and\nfinance networks established under empire. We also need to allow entry to\nimmigrants who know how to cook chicken tikka masala in order to be able to eat\nit.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem, of course, is that pinning down the cultural identity of any Leaver is challenging. After all, Nigel Farage is renowned for his love of curry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gastronationalism, Brexit and populism<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Brexit has\nbeen widely portrayed as a manifestation of a \u2018populist\u2019 politics said to be\nsweeping the world. Whether this politics is indeed \u2018populist\u2019 is questionable,\nbut it is a move away from the kind of nationalism that underpinned the postwar\ninternational order towards a nationalism of ethno?cultural interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The populist\nrejects globalisation because of its corrosive effects on authentic national\nculture. However, the myth of authentic British values, or national culture, is\nabout as vaporous as the myth of authentic British cuisine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The irony here is that the EU itself has done much to encourage the myth of national food cultures and food authenticity that makes up gastronationalism. Now that idea \u2013 as part of the emergence of a nationalist populism that focusses on cultural identity and integration \u2013 threatens the future of the EU, regardless of the UK\u2019s future relationship with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A longer version of this article<\/a> was published in the <\/em>Political Quarterly journal.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Gastronationalism\u2019 is the idea that there are distinctive and authentic national food cultures that are threatened by the forces of globalisation. It is a myth. But as shown by debates on the politics of food and Brexit, gastronationalism can have powerful political effects. The identification of a nation with the food it eats has played […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":2973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1390,1395,1396],"tags":[1963,1964],"coauthors":[1962],"class_list":["post-2971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","category-comment","category-uk","tag-food","tag-gastronationalism"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Brexit-and-Gastronationalism-zach-rowlandson-WGB9EEnAaMQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}