CONSUMING PERANAKAN FOOD

Abstract

The primary focus of this research is upon the interaction between food, embodiment and subjectivity. Specifically, I am interested in exploring the ways in which the Peranakans inscribe an ethnic identity onto their cuisine, taking a social constructionist approach that emphasizes how the food has been constructed to embody a Peranakan heritage and identity that is perceived by the Peranakans as uniquely their own. The construction of this cultural commodity is in turn reproduced as a sociocultural phenomenon. The theoretical orientation of this thesis is hence postmodernist, drawing on inquiries into the socially constructed nature of knowledge, and employing discourse as a useful way of understanding the production and reproduction of meanings. Therefore, attention is paid in this thesis to the ways that discourses on Peranakan food are articulated in a number of diverse sites, including popular culture, the Peranakans' accounts of their foodways, non-Peranakans views on the cuisine as well as the state's perspective. Thus, food becomes no longer just something to eat, but it embodies the symbols of an ethnic identity. This thesis attempts to highlight the symbolic value of food by focussing on perhaps the most popular cuisine in the nation, the Peranakan cuisine.