Of kimchi and coffee: Globalisation, transnationalism and familiarity in culinary consumption

Abstract

This paper discusses the culinary consumption choices of South Korean international students in Auckland, New Zealand as a route to re-considering the transnational production of familiarity. In particular, this study questions the extent to which culinary consumption by transnational migrants is always an intentional declaration of 'group loyalties' or about the re-production of local or national identities. Drawing on research with students this paper illustrates that while some aspects of the familiarity enacted in culinary consumption appear to be 'local', in the sense that they are encoded as 'Korean', other aspects appear to represent forms of 'global' familiarity. Hence, it is argued that culinary consumption in transnational worlds can also more subtly represent an effort to recreate familiarity through reference to characteristics of everyday life before migration that may include what appear to be both global and local products. Such familiarity is then not necessarily about group loyalties or identities but rather an example of the importance of practical know how and familiar sensations in feelings of belonging and attachment.