Abstract
Food is not only a means of survival but a vital expression of culture, memory, and identity. For displaced populations, the tension between humanitarian diets and traditional culinary practices becomes a crucial site of adaptation and resistance. This paper asks how Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar sustain, adapt, and transform their food practices within the restrictions of camp life, and what these practices reveal about identity, health, and cultural survival under displacement. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Rohingya camps (2022–2024), the study draws from interviews, participant observation, and engagement with household food practices. Guided by the anthropology of food and practice theory, it examines how food functions as both nourishment and a performative act through which communities assert belonging, dignity, and agency. Findings reveal that standardized aid rations—mainly rice, lentils, and oil—rarely align with cultural preferences, prompting creative adaptation through informal markets, foraging, and small kitchen gardens. Communal cooking, meal sharing, and religiously rooted diets help preserve social bonds and cultural identity. At the same time, limited food diversity and scarce fresh produce create health challenges, even as traditional methods persist as quiet acts of resistance. Recent aid cuts have further intensified food insecurity, constraining both nutrition and dignity. The study argues that refugee food systems should be understood not as technical provisioning but as cultural and political processes shaping well-being, identity, and resilience. It calls for humanitarian approaches that recognize cultural sensitivity and refugee agency in shaping food choices.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Rohingya refugees, Humanitarian aid, Health, Food, Nutrition, Culture
