Exploring Cape Malay Identity Through the Lens of Food Allyson Ang SIT Graduate Institute - Study Abroad
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SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection SIT Study Abroad Fall 2015 Exploring Cape Malay Identity Through the Lens of Food Allyson Ang SIT Graduate Institute - Study Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection Part of the African Studies Commons, Anthropology Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, and the Sociology of Culture Commons Recommended Citation Ang, Allyson, "Exploring Cape Malay Identity Through the Lens of Food" (2015). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 2158. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/2158 This Unpublished Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Study Abroad at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Exploring Cape Malay Identity Through the Lens of Food Allyson Ang Academic Director: Stewart Chirova Advisor: Ismail Farouk Wellesley College Sociology & Asian American Studies South Africa: Cape Town Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for South Africa: Multiculturalism and Human Rights, SIT Study Abroad Fall 2015 Table of Contents Acknowledgements Abstract Introduction 1. Limitations Literature Review Methodology 1. Ethical Reflexivity Findings Analysis Conclusion Recommendations for Further Study Bibliography Appendices Ang 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for helping me with my research project. Stewart Chirova, Tabisa Dyonase, and the rest of the SIT staff: Thank you for all of your hard work that made this semester possible. Ismail Farouk: Thank you so much for your unconditional support and friendship. Shireen Narkedien: Without your help, I wouldn’t have been able to finish this paper. Thank you! Jasmien & Tasneem: Thank you for teaching me to cook and providing me with lovely company. Kathy and Wim Ang: Without the love and encouragement of my beautiful parents, I would not have gotten through this semester. Thanks for giving birth to me. Ang 3 Abstract This study explores the construction of Cape Malay identity through the lens of food. Made up of descendants of slaves from India, Madagascar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mozambique, and other places, “Cape Malay” is a very contentious identity. Although people who fall under the label of Cape Malay today are hundreds of years removed from their slave ancestors, there are still distinct remnants of these origins in Cape Malay culture. One of the ways in which this is most evident is Cape Malay cuisine. Cape Malay dishes such as bobotie, samosas, bredie, and beryani have become staples in South African food and all have clear slave roots. However, although many elements of Cape Malay cuisine can be traced back to India, Indonesia, and other places where slaves came from, it is more than the sum of these parts: it is evidence of the unique and particular Cape Malay identity. In this project, I use a combination of secondary research, observations, and very informal interviews with people who identify as Cape Malay about their identities to explore the extent to which they feel connected to their slave heritage. I look at Cape Malay identity through the lens of food, as food is a universally important marker of tradition and culture. Through my research, I find that although there are many aspects of slave ancestry that can be found in Cape Malay culture, Cape Malay people today identify more with their distinct South African identity rather than with their slave heritage. Ang 4 Introduction The subject of my research is Cape Malay identity. Although this is a highly contested and socially constructed term just like any other racial or ethnic label, it is generally used to refer to the descendants of slaves who were brought to the Cape Town area primarily from South and Southeast Asia. However, many Cape Malay people also have ancestry from Europe, South Asia, Madagascar, and other places in Africa (da Costa, 1994, p. 238). Although Cape Malay identity has always had distinct slave origins, after the end of slavery in South Africa, the Cape Malay community was racially classified as “coloured” and many Cape Malay people were forcibly relocated to places such as Bo-Kaap under the Group Areas Act. Often, the term “Cape Malay” is used interchangeably with “Muslim” or “Cape Muslim” because of the strong presence of Islam within the Cape Malay community (Baderoon, 2014). However, though Islam was an extremely important force in building a shared identity among slaves brought to Cape Town, not all Cape Malay people are Muslim and not all South African Muslims are Cape Malay. Therefore, I will be examining Cape Malay identity not through the lens of religion, but through the lens of food. Furthermore, in this paper, I will use the term “Cape Malay” unless specifically referring to Islam and its followers, in which case I will use “Muslim.” Specifically, my research has the following objectives: 1) to determine the role of food in the construction of a Cape Malay identity, 2) to explore whether or not Cape Malay people today maintain a conscious connection to their heritage, and 3) to explore whether and how food is used to bridge the gap between present-day Cape Malay people and their ancestry. My ISP consists of an introduction, a literature review, a methodology section, a section where I present my results and analysis thereof, recommendations for further study, and a bibliography/reference list. I use a combination of primary and secondary sources in my work. My primary sources come in the form of accounts of personal experiences and observations I have had with the preparation, consumption, and cultural significance of Cape Malay cuisine. For secondary Ang 5 sources, I use a combination of journal articles, books, and cookbooks. The main books that I use in my research are What Is Slavery to Me? by Pumla Dineo Gqola (2010), Regarding Muslims: From Slavery to Postapartheid by Gabeba Baderoon (2014), Bo-Kaap Kitchen by Maggie Mouton, Cass Abrahams Cooks Cape Malay by Cass Abrahams (1995), and The Cape Malay Cookbook by Faldela Williams (2007). I also use journal articles and essays written by Gabeba Baderoon, bell hooks, Yusuf da Costa, Lannice Snyman, Mohamed Adhikari, and several other authors. Limitations Obviously I have a ridiculous amount of limitations in this project. Arguably the biggest limitation is time: I only had four weeks to complete this research, which is nowhere near a sufficient amount of time to be able to draw any significant conclusions. Therefore, I am only able to analyze the very limited experiences I have had in these four weeks. There are a whole host of other limitations facing me in this endeavor, including my positionality (which is both a privilege and an obstacle), geographic constrictions (I was only really able to explore the Bo-Kaap district of Cape Town, which by no means encompasses the “Cape Malay community), money (I’m sure I would have been able to go about this research very differently if I had unlimited funding), and my mental health (some days, I couldn’t even manage to go into Cape Town because I was either too depressed or the sexual harassment I inevitably experienced made me too uncomfortable and upset). All that aside, I hope that this project can contribute and respond to the existing body of literature surrounding Cape Malay identity and food. Ang 6 Literature Review Throughout the existence of the white supremacist institution, the commodification of colonized cultures has been used as a method of exploitation and subjugation by colonizing forces. This is especially evident in terms of cuisine: simply walk in to any grocery store and venture down the “ethnic” food aisle, or observe the abundance of Thai restaurants in areas where Thai people themselves are scarce to be found. Black feminist author and activist bell hooks wrote about the commodification of culture and how it serves to reinforce white power in her 1992 essay “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance.” In this piece, hooks writes, “The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling. Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture” (hooks, 1992, p. 366). This commodification can take many different forms, including the packaging and selling of objects or accessories of cultural significance, sexual relationships between white people and people of color, and through the white fascination with “exotic” cuisines. Within the South African context, the white minority turns the Cape Malay community into the Other, and uses their cuisine as a lens through which to experience Cape Malay culture in a sanitized and (if you will pardon the pun) palatable manner. Although this may seem like a relatively benign phenomenon, as hooks writes, “The over- riding fear is that cultural, ethnic, and racial differences will be continually commodified and offered up as new dishes to enhance the white palate – that the Other will be eaten, consumed, and forgotten” (hooks, 1992, p. 380). Inevitably when the dominant white institution takes hold of any aspect of the culture of a marginalized group, they distort and use it for their own benefit without regard to its significance and impact. When the Other is eaten, so to speak, there is always the danger that the culture of the Other will be used and then discarded. Although Cape Malay culture is still very much alive and well despite years of oppression and marginalization, Cape Malay cuisine has undeniably been exploited by the dominant Ang 7 white minority to paint a picturesque and one-dimensional portrait of the community and to erase the violent and brutal history of slavery.