PI: Tahura Enam Navile | Collaborator: Sohel Rahman
Project ID: 2023SG05 | Location of Research: Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh | Host Institution: Durham University
This project explores the stateless Rohingya community’s traditional recipes and food practices in Kutupalong camps of Cox’s Bazar. Since 2017, more than 800,000 Rohingya have escaped persecution by the Myanmar government. Rohingyas are the second largest group of stateless people who got shelter in the camps of southeast Bangladesh. Food for the Rohingya community is conceptualised in the context of food insecurity and hunger. Therefore, being stateless also changed their traditional food culture. The Rohingya community struggled to meet their daily nutritional demands as they did not have the right to food in Myanmar for decades. After they took shelter in the Bangladesh camps, they had limited options for essential food items.
In many cases, the Rohingya community had to be innovative in search of food to survive long-term exclusion in Myanmar and be stateless in Bangladesh. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) provides food aid to Rohingya communities in camps, including essential cooking items, which enables them to continue their traditional food culture in their daily lives. In this context, this project explores Rohingya recipes and food practices to understand how the traditional and cultural boundaries overlap, shift, and change through the long-term marginalisation in Myanmar and within the refugee camp experience in Bangladesh.
Methodology
This project conducts six months of ethnographic scoping research with 20 in-depth interviews, participant observation, and audio-visual data to document recipes and food practices of the stateless Rohingya community in camps in Bangladesh, aiming to document and revitalise Rohingya traditional food practices. Digital cameras, audio recorders, and ancillary equipment such as tripods were employed in the camp to document data, while laptops were subsequently utilized for organizing and editing the material during the course of this project.
All Rohingya participants in this project have been anonymised due to the precarity of their legal status as stateless refugees. Consent was collected from all subjects prior to documentation in accordance with GDPR regulations.
Documentary film, “The Spirit Of Women Community: Homemade Pithas (Traditional Cakes) In The Camp”
Selected Assets
The following provide an overview of the project’s topics.
Camp Environment
Monthly Rations
Since filming in the autumn of 2023, the UN World Food Programme has reduced this ration by half.
Ingredients
Ingredients native to Myanmar must find Bangladeshi replacements.
Food Sources
Botki Blades
The botki is a blade used in South Asia to prepare food. Cutting is done downward against the blade held between one’s feet.
Leftovers
Food is reused until it is consumed to avoid waste.
Recipes
This project documents recipes ranging from snacks and drinks to full meals and celebratory dishes.
Acknowledgements
The EMKP extends its thanks to the following individuals for their contributions: Professor Nayanika Mookherjee for supervising the overall project and its outcomes; collaborator Sohel Rahman for capturing and editing audiovisual assets with the assistance of Taukir Mahmud Sahaf; Mohammad Tarek for providing further documentary expertise and facilitating interpretation; and last but not least, two young community members, referred to as AN1 and AN2 in the dataset, who acted as gatekeepers of the Rohingya community during fieldwork.