Start Date
26-5-2026 11:15 AM
End Date
26-5-2026 11:30 AM
Description
On the night of 03 August 2024, Adam Kelwick, the imam from the Abdullah Quillian Society Mosque in Liverpool crossed police lines and presented anti-immigration protesters with burgers and chips prepared in the mosque kitchen. This took place in the aftermath of the Southport stabbings and the worst outbreak of civil disorder in Britain for more than a decade. “We decided to deal with those people who came to protest against us in a way which we hoped could open up hearts and minds. We wanted to cook food for them.” This paper will examine the power of food to communicate across difference. As we attempt to cope with the polycrisis unfolding around us and the pervasive and enduring state of instability, we increasingly crave opportunities for connection while battling with fear and suspicion. All of this is taking place in a perfect shitstorm of disinformation and misinformation. Here we are rummaging powerlessly amongst the “rubble of words that house nothing anymore.” In this paper, I explore what happens when we turn away from language and use food as a means of translation. In 1795 Immanuel Kant described hospitality as a way of sharing the curved surface of the earth. In medieval Irish society there was an “inescapable obligation” on ordinary people to provide food and shelter to the stranger. What if we don’t understand or recognise this stranger? No matter says Aruna D’Souza who makes a beautiful argument for care over empathy. After all, when we share a meal, we become more alike. All the problems of eating and drinking, insofar as they concern the other, become sacred, according to Levinas. Let us dwell awhile on the gurgling wordless stories of our guts; on the shared narrative of coexistence and see might we cobble together some grains of hope.
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Included in
The Rubble of Words: Food as a Device for Silence in a Time of Polycrisis
On the night of 03 August 2024, Adam Kelwick, the imam from the Abdullah Quillian Society Mosque in Liverpool crossed police lines and presented anti-immigration protesters with burgers and chips prepared in the mosque kitchen. This took place in the aftermath of the Southport stabbings and the worst outbreak of civil disorder in Britain for more than a decade. “We decided to deal with those people who came to protest against us in a way which we hoped could open up hearts and minds. We wanted to cook food for them.” This paper will examine the power of food to communicate across difference. As we attempt to cope with the polycrisis unfolding around us and the pervasive and enduring state of instability, we increasingly crave opportunities for connection while battling with fear and suspicion. All of this is taking place in a perfect shitstorm of disinformation and misinformation. Here we are rummaging powerlessly amongst the “rubble of words that house nothing anymore.” In this paper, I explore what happens when we turn away from language and use food as a means of translation. In 1795 Immanuel Kant described hospitality as a way of sharing the curved surface of the earth. In medieval Irish society there was an “inescapable obligation” on ordinary people to provide food and shelter to the stranger. What if we don’t understand or recognise this stranger? No matter says Aruna D’Souza who makes a beautiful argument for care over empathy. After all, when we share a meal, we become more alike. All the problems of eating and drinking, insofar as they concern the other, become sacred, according to Levinas. Let us dwell awhile on the gurgling wordless stories of our guts; on the shared narrative of coexistence and see might we cobble together some grains of hope.