The Languages of Food and Imagined Communities at a Somali Restaurant in Bellville, South Africa

Abstract

This study is an ethnographic account of an ethnic restaurant of the Somali immigrant community in South Africa. It seeks to examine the role that a Somali restaurant plays with regard to the food cooked, served, and consumed as well as the linguistic and non-linguistic ways in which the guests, Somalis and non-Somalis, negotiate their ethnic and national identities and communities in relation to the food and the wider physical and social context of the restaurant, located in the Bellville region of South Africa. A secular environment, South Africa can also be described as fairly xenophobic and Afrophobic. For the collection of data, the study focused on the restaurateur, employees, and guests. The findings indicated that through food memories, habits, and practices, and an aura of conviviality and homeliness, the Somali and non-Somali immigrants developed and sustained a sense of community and solidarity. This is as opposed to the mainly commercial and uniform feel of western (or American) (or) fast food restaurants. As a corollary of this, it is the case that immigrants carry with them norms and values which ought to be drawn from by the host society.