Course Syllabus

 

Food, Migration, and Belonging

Semester & Location:	Summer Session 3  YEAR - DIS Copenhagen
Type & Credits:	Elective Course - 3 credits
Major Disciplines:	Food studies, Sociology, Anthropology
Faculty Members:	Teresa Imaya Bengtson (current students please use the Canvas Inbox)
Time & Place:	Classroom: S12-05

The Syllabus may change throughout the course so please keep up to date. 

Course Description:

 

“People eating similar food are trustworthy, good, familiar, and safe; but people eating unusual food give rise to feelings of distrust, suspicion and even disgust” (Scholliers, 2001).

 

Denmark is a fairly homogenous country with an increasingly popular ‘New Nordic” food scene characterized by local and often forgotten foods. At the same time, food in Denmark is also heavily influenced by more culturally diverse food practices stemming from immigration since the 1970s. This has sparked complex discussions at both the public level and around dinner tables in Denmark, about how food is used for integration and belonging (for example finding a job) - but can also serve to alienate (for example through school lunches). With food as the jumping off point and the greater Copenhagen as our extended classroom, we will use our senses and analytical skills to explore relevant food and migration related cases and dilemmas. We will ask questions such as: how can food and food practices influence our sense of belonging – or serve to exclude? How does food delineate social groups and how? By the end of this course, you will gain a better understanding of the central themes within the intersection of food and migration (food and identity, power, mobility, belonging, representation, passing, othering, culture, ethnicity, integration, transnationalism, nationalism, etc.) and of how food and eating can be a powerful political and cultural act.  

Course themes:

• The Politics of Food
• Immigrant Integration and Belonging through Food
• ‘Authentic’ or ‘Ethnic Food’
• Food and Cultural Identity
• Retro Racism
• Public Debates on Food and Immigration 

Selected Readings:

• Karrebæk, M., S. (2012) "What's in Your Lunch Box Today?": Health, Respectability, and Ethnicity in the Primary Classroom. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology , May 2012, Vol. 22, No. 1 (May 2012), pp. 1- 22
• Lapina, L. (2018). 'Cultivating Integration'? Migrant Space-making in Urban Gardens. In L. Bull Christiansen, L. Paulsen Galal, & K. Hvenegaard-Lassen (Eds.), Cultural Encounters as Intervention Practices Routledge.
• News Paper Article. Eating Multiculturalism - Peril magazine

 

Field Studies and guest Lectures

• See Calendar

Faculty:

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Teresa is cand.mag in Advanced Migration Studies from Copenhagen University and has a Bachelor's degree in Global Humanities specializing in Communications and Cultural Encounters from Roskilde University. Teresa is Danish-American as she is a first-generation American who was born and raised in San Francisco, California, and has lived in Copenhagen for the past nine years. Teresa has studied abroad at the University of Amsterdam and specialized in transnational relationships and sugar dating within study abroad. She also did an exchange at the University of California, Santa Barbara with the Chicano/a/x department focusing on Latina/o/x migration and belonging and indigenous health and food practices. Teresa has volunteered and worked with numerous non-profit organizations that support migrants and minorities in creative and innovative ways. With DIS since 2014.

Approach to Teaching:

Food and migration are complex topics that are best met with an interdisciplinary approach and an open mind. In this class, we will challenge ourselves to think of cases from multiple perspectives and integrate embodied modes of learning.

My aim is to create a class environment that inspires and motivates you to engage constructively and openly. You can expect to be actively involved in each class through either discussion, questions, games, teamwork, or presentations; concurrently, I aspire to create a safe and daring environment that respectively supports the more introverted and extroverted students. 

Our classes will strive to combine theory and practice by comparing theory to current political views and news articles; inviting relevant guest speakers who will present academic, political, or personal approaches to the course subjects; taking the class outside the classroom for relevant field studies or independent city excursions. The assignments will also be a reflection of this approach given that they will interweave actual or fictional minority and migrant narratives in the ambition to increase the knowledge and understanding of the individual and collective challenges a migrant or minority faces.

Expectations of the Students

I expect that you participate actively, as you will be involved in questions, discussions, and presentations for class. Through the course, you will be asked to engage curiously, critically, and academically, always based on your preparation for class from class reading, assignments, and curiosity in the field.

The social environment in a class also plays a vital role in the learning experience and I aspire for all of us to be part of constructing a positive and safe environment for discussions to take place. 

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, you will:

• Confidently apply theories about belonging, identity, cultural differences and similarities, food injustices, globalization, and transnationalism.
• Understand how food plays a critical role in the production and reproduction of dominant and migrant cultures, identity, and communities.

 

Assignments:

• Participation and Attendance	30%
  Assignment 1 - Observations Through Food Group Presentation	30%
  Observations Through Food Individual Reflection	25%
  Assignment 2- The Debate on School Lunches	15%

Policies

Grading

*A word about grades: I realize that grades are important to you, but try not to let your anxiety about grades deter you from taking intellectual or artistic risks since they are often what you learn most from. Also, my grade is never an indication of my evaluation of you as a person. I grade you to give you my honest assessment of your performance at this point in time.

It is crucial for your learning that you stay on task and hand in assignments on or before the due date. All work– including in-class projects – has to be completed in order to pass the class. As the summer course moves very fast I will not be able to give individual extensions and late papers or projects will be marked down with 1/3 of a grade for each day it is late and I will not accept papers more than 3 days late (in other words you have 3 days to turn in late work where it will be marked down and on the 4th day the assignment is a 0). I will not be able to re-grade work. 

 

Participation and Attendance

You are expected to attend all classes, guest lectures, workshops, and field studies. If you must miss a class for religious holidays, medical reasons, or other valid reasons, you must let us know as far in advance as possible of the absence and obtain information about the work you must do to keep up in class. If you miss a class for any other reason (sudden illness, family emergency, etc.), you should get in touch with the faculty as soon as possible and at least 1 hour prior to the class start. Absences can impact your participation grade and if a student has two or more unexcused absences the student risks failing the course. *

Use of laptops or phones in class – The use of electronic devices in class is allowed only for notes or group research. It is the students' responsibility to display active listening while taking notes on the computer. If technology becomes a distraction, the instructor reserves the right to change the rules of electronic devices in the classroom and inappropriate use of technology will affect students' participation grades without verbal or written warning. If you are a student that is doubt if your use of technology is appropriate, come talk to me!

Inappropriate, rude of disrespectful behavior will result in a score of 0 for the entire participation grade and may mean failure of the course, or removal from the DIS Program.

*This syllabus is subject to change and I reserve the right to change class hours within normal working hours during the course (e.g 9 AM- 5PM). There will be some classes later evening, in which you will be notified at least 1 week in advance via the calendar in canvas. 

Disability and Resource Statement  

Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the Office of Academic Support (acadsupp@dis.dk) to coordinate this. For mental health inquires reach out to care@dis.dk 

Academic Regulations 

Plagiarism and Violating the Rules of an Assignment

DIS expects that students abide by the highest standards of intellectual honesty in all academic work. DIS assumes that all students do their own work and credit all work or thought taken from others.  Academic dishonesty will result in a final course grade of “F” and can result in dismissal. The students’ home universities will be notified. DIS reserves the right to request that written student assignments be turned in electronic form for submission to plagiarism detection software.  See the Academic Handbook for more information, or ask your instructor if you have questions. If you use chat gbt or other AI for your assignments please make that known and indicate how. 

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on:

• Course Enrollment and Grading
• Academic Expectations and Honor Code

 

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