Reterritorializing space: Migrant food practices in Durban, South Africa

Abstract

The relationship between food cultures and urban environments is often symbiotic, with spatial contexts also often influencing people’s food preferences and consumption patterns. This, in turn, can potentially help create memories that shape the meanings associated with specific spaces and places. This paper explores the relationship between specific situated African migrant food practices, and what may be construed as relationships with urban environments in Durban Central, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The study worked through mixed methodology and utilized a questionnaire, observation, in-depth interviews and GIS mapping, to understand how particular migrants communities used food to establish their presence in urban spaces and adapt and (attempt to) transform Durban’s social and spatial context to reflect their identities and the meanings they attach to the spaces, demonstrating what can be understood as forms of placemaking and reterritorialization. Findings suggest that these food practices actively (re)shape Durban’s urban landscape through processes of placemaking. These practices are not merely physical or economic but serve as rich, entangled social, symbolic, and emotional conduits that facilitate processes of reterritorialization.