Commensality And de-Othering: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Dialogue Through Foodways Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Power, Brittany Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 29/09/2021 18:05:14 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/631290 COMMENSALITY AND DE-OTHERING: MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS, AND JEWS IN DIALOGUE THROUGH FOODWAYS by Brittany Elizabeth Power _________________________ Copyright © Brittany Power 2018 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2018 1 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am so grateful to so many people whom without the help and support of this thesis would never have come to fruition. At the top, I must thank my graduate adviser and mentor Dr. Leila Hudson for guiding me toward the shape and form of this work so artfully and deftly. Thank you to my committee members Dr. Maha Nasaar and Dr. Amy Newhall. Dr. Nassar for being there to answer questions and provide direction, as well as, aiding me in the conception of this project. And Dr. Newhall for her inspiring teaching and sound advice toward revising this work. I would like to thank all the faculty and staff in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies with whom I have had the pleasure to study and work these past three years. Thank you to Dr. Yaseen Noorani, Dr. Ben Fortna, Dr. Samira Farwana, Dr. Austin O’Malley, and Dr. Anne Betteridge. All of you are worthy scholars and I have gained much from knowing and working with each of you. I would like to thank Marriam Hawatmah the most able program coordinator, as well as our dedicated and most competent administrative assistant Eldon Vita. I would have been utterly lost without you both and I am proud to count you among my friends. Of course, I must especially thank my interlocutors, for without them there would have been nothing to put down on these pages. I thank you all for taking the time out of your busy lives to spend the hours with me that you did, as well as for the unique experience each of you made of this project. It is always a little scary and somewhat uncomfortable to come together with people you do not know to share, disclose, and to reveal and I am so appreciative of your willingness to do that. I would like to offer a most heartfelt gratitude to my graduate colleagues here at MENAS. 3 Pouye Koshkhoo, John Perugini, Atacan Atakan, Tatiana Rabinavitch, Abbas Braham, David Koopman, Saffo Papantanopolou, Kyle Jones, Mojtba Ebrahimian, Robbie Nixon, Zoe Kossof, Feras Klenk, and Alye Mehin. You have all been help and support to me through this process in too many ways to mention. I thank you all. To my family and friends outside of the academy I must also express special thanks. To my Mother and father for their love, as well as physical and financial support, my deepest gratitude. To my sisters Stephanie Power-Thomason, Cynthia Power-Dowdy, and Susan Power-Shaffer Your words, your love, and your myriad kindnesses along this journey have meant so much to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you to my dear friends Geri Greggory and J B Sampson for all the many long conversations, the hospitality and the purest friendship that has gone so far in helping me to get through this arduous but rewarding process. Finally, I must thank three very special people who have each played such a key role in my development as a person and as a scholar. First, Deborah Moon, my teacher, mentor, and dear friend, I would not have had the foundation or the depth of theoretical knowledge that I needed to be successful in this undertaking with out your expert and loving guidance, I owe you much my friend. Second, to Will Robertson, also a friend and mentor, I would never have had the courage, the competence, or the ability to take a chance on a graduate career at this late stage in life if you had not taken me under your wing and “shown me the ropes” as it were. Thank you so much. Third and finally, to my best friend and closest colleague at the University of Arizona and MENAS, Lara Tarantini. Well, without you I may have lost my mind. You propped me up so many times and you talked me through so many barely formed ideas and helped me give them shape and substance. You have been my rock and my gratitude runs eternal. 4 This thesis is dedicated to the loving memory of my mother Barbara Anne McCauley Power 5 Table of Contents ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction: The Prologue ............................................................................................................. 8 Relevant Background: Why these Questions .............................................................................. 8 Literature Review: Theories of subject formation and agency and power relationships .......... 12 So, what about food and the children of Abraham/Ibrahim? .................................................... 13 Commensality: Eating, drinking and talking together at the same table ................................... 16 Theoretical Frame ..................................................................................................................... 17 Intersecting disciplines .......................................................................................................... 17 Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 21 Putting it all together ............................................................................................................. 21 Recruitment and Consenting Process ........................................................................................ 22 Analysis: A Lesson, a Meal, and a Conversation ......................................................................... 24 The Original Research Question: .............................................................................................. 24 The Monotheistic Tradition ....................................................................................................... 28 Act I: The Lesson ...................................................................................................................... 34 The Abrahamic/Ibrahimic Faith Context .................................................................................. 37 Act II: The Meal ........................................................................................................................ 53 Act III: A Conversation ............................................................................................................. 62 Discussion: Why Commensality? ................................................................................................. 73 Conclusion: The Big Picture ......................................................................................................... 79 Appendix A: Priori and Emergent codes and their Number of Occurrences ................................ 83 Appendix B: Group Activities Chart ............................................................................................ 85 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 86 6 ABSTRACT This research constitutes a qualitative participatory action project in which I interrogate the role of foodways among Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the production of group subject formation and intergroup perceptions. The impetus for this project is based on an interest in sustainable peace building and conflict management in a Middle Eastern and North African context. The question that predicated the research project is: Will recognition of shared aspects of religio-cultural symbolism and ritual centered on food in an Abrahamic context facilitate de- othering processes among Muslims, Christians and Jews? Further, this research operationalizes commensality as a lens through which the efficacy of exposure to the shared ritual and symbolic aspects of foodways in the context of the relatedness of the Abrahamic faiths might be assessed. The finding of this research shows that it is commensality and the affective and effective processes inherent in it that is productive and efficacious. Commensality may be defined as the act of people sharing food and drink together at the same table. It seems that it is through the affect of the dialogic, performative phenomenon of sharing food, drink, and talk, together that de-othering processes were effectuated among the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish interlocutors that participated in this project. 7 Introduction: The Prologue How might the sharing of food and drink at a communal table by Muslims, Christians, and Jews engender an intersubjective experience of relatedness? This research attends to the facilitation of an understanding of such a process by examining the performativity of dialogue in a commensal context. To that end two questions need to be answered, “Does the shared food symbolism of the three