IMBISS: A Working Group - Episode 7: Jollof Rice

Jollof Rice – Ghana or Nigeria? The seventh session of the IMBISS Working Group will be led by Abdel Amine Mohammed. The session will introduce the debate surrounding the preparation of jollof rice, a dish originating from Ghana, Nigeria, and other West African countries. Rather than being a matter of contention, the debate can be seen as a light-hearted competition of hyperbole and wit. This spirited discourse reflects the shared origins and cultural fluidity of West Africa, where geographical boundaries are not as rigid and traditional practices intermingle. However, beneath this culinary pride lies a more profound narrative of rice, slavery, and emancipation, which has been largely eclipsed by discourses surrounding cotton and plantation nostalgia.

Wednesday 27th of November at 7pm

IMBISS: A Working Group

“IMBISS: a working group” is a series of study groups, workshops and performances around the kitchen table that think food as that which is simultaneously life sustenance, a cultural ecosystem and a political product. Its curriculum looks at the intersections between eating practices, culinary histories, food production and trade, and global politics.

Each of the series’ sessions will focus on a different food item or practice and open up its political history. They will be looking at how these intersect with colonial histories, global capitalist trade routes, processes of racialisation, gender politics, economic uneven development, histories of revolutionary organising, and others.

This project is being developed with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.