How

Planning

Research

I set about doing endless qualitative research and got to know about food, culture and memoirs. Always exploring where these areas overlapped. Armed with this body of research I began to test my theory through action research interventions. You can see the interventions and results in my Learning Journal in detail. Through observations and feedback, It was evident that around food, strangers will engage and feel free to participate in discussion proving that ‘food does help break down barriers to aid conversation’. 

Analysis/Testing

After unit 2 and through reflection of my interventions and findings I devised a process model. This was borne from my research following two parallel routes (International students and local community) but enquiring the same question. Originally I had unique questions for different sessions. I realised that I needed to make the questions the same so as to draw comparative data. When I analysed and reflected on my sessions to date patterns started to become apparent. In the process of my sessions I was going through certain motions that would set the mood to facilitate a sharing ambiance. Ultimately the purpose of my sessions was to get conversation flowing with all participants and for them to feel comfortable to open up and discuss their cultural experiences and memoirs. I had the aim of getting information and this being a spice of cultural interest, a significant cultural recipe and a food memory/story. Although I had these aims this was just a basis as a forum for discussion. The real beauty of the sessions was the stories that are shared within them. Unable to document them and capture them I recorded the sessions as audio and where possible video. My plan is for each story to have a corresponding recipe and spice that will go onto my Food-Connect website, Social Media and cookbook. Food-Connect is the social enterprise initiative that I have set up as the platform to gather and share stories of diverse communities to raise awareness of cultures and to promote communication. Just as culture has tangible and intangible elements (see culture tree) The process of the workshops draws on the tangible and intangible cultural experiences of the participant. Through the sharing of these experiences a sense of bonding and cultural validation is felt. 

So to my final thought on the question why am I still continuing with  the two streams of enquiry: students and local community? My model has formed a process for extracting the information that I require from each session and that is a memoire, significant recipe and a relevant spice. This gives me visible/tangible view of the outcome of a session – the recipe and story that I record on Food-Connect. There is also an invisible/intangible benefit that sits below the surface and that is that it gives the participant a sense of being and cultural validation. Through the process it gives their stories worth, Through the sharing (group or individual) it gives cultural validation. This links to the culture tree illustration. 

My project started by Looking at the whole of London but I narrowed my study area down to my local borough of Ealing using my local high street as a snapshot section that contained a global mix of food outlets. As the study progressed I connected with groups within the community: Pitshanger Traders Association, Library, Traders Association, St Barnabas Church, Pitshanger Allotment, Community Engagement Officers, Gunnersbury Museum, Ealing Council.

The disruption caused by COVID has created endless challenges and caused me to shift my research enquiries. Where my intention was to have in person sessions I have had to adapt and adjust. This has forced me to embrace social media and be imaginative and creative in my exploration. With the whole world being in lockdown and it seemed now everyone was sharing their food experiences I wondered whether my research still had purpose. 

Interventions

 My most recent intervention was a workshop that I have held for the Polar Group. The final iteration of my Model was completed and I needed to test it. With the second Lockdown my plans to test it on the Allotments, Traders and Church Hall workshops had to be put on hold. I had been working on a co-curricular project with my POLAR interdisciplinary team of six students from six different countries on food waste saving, for a university campus canteen in Switzerland. The whole project had 5 teams. After working in my team for several weeks now it was becoming a bit of an issue that only three of us would engage and contribute to team discussions. It appeared that other teams were engaging and being proactive with each other and getting a better volume of results. A team colleague raised her concerns and it was discussed with our coach. I saw this as an opportunity to test my Model so, I offered to hold my zine workshop session. After all, my whole purpose was “to use food as a conduit to help break down barriers and promote cultural sharing”. I reworked my proforma, PowerPoint presentation and feedback form to be targeted to this groups specific requirements. Learning from my latest workshops I cut the number of questions down to keep the session in a practical time slot of two hours. I adjusted the questions to get the specific information I wanted to focus on. I found that I only needed six questions which actually followed the framework for my Model.

My hypothesis for this intervention was that it would result in better communication within the team. There would be hurdles if some team members were not wanting to give more engagement or could see the benefit of it for the team. Maybe they were just shy. This particular workshop was even more challenging as they were not all resident in UK at all. Additionally I was aware that the possible reason for lack of engagement was that in some cultures levels of sharing are different and students are not expected to participate with tutors. You can see the whole workshop session along with the Zines and questionnaire answers here (Link). I worked through the session questions making sure that each participant had a chance at answering all questions in their own time. I felt the session went well and the feedback was positive. We all learnt new things about each other that will be useful knowledge for the project. Feedback comments were: “Well moderated”, “learnt new things”, “Helped to find out more about team members”. It will be interesting to see the difference in feelings from the proforma and the feedback form.

It is in the last few weeks of my project that I have seen the final shift to my question. It has gone through many changes starting as ‘an enquiry into the use of food and spice to get stories’. Then looking at ‘how food, culture and storytelling can be utilised to break down barriers to promote cultural sharing’. To now, ‘why a study into the use of food as a conduit for cultural sharing benefits communities? In just the last week I have been approached by two main stakeholders for consultation on my knowledge to collaborate on community projects which will take part next year. I have applied my workshop in an International student group to get communication flowing to solve a genuine problem. Seeing that the new knowledge has value and is being applied to real life contexts evidences its importance and need for this study.