Vanja is a PhD candidate in social work and social policy at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade. She is visiting Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education one month through a mobility grant in Circle U.
– My research is participatory and being developed as a collective biography seeking to set political cooking against the backdrop of failing welfare states and the increasing number of people on the move who are not being taken care of by local social services. I also want to document the ways in which solidarity kitchens in Serbia are able to reach individuals in need of services that remain out of reach for government (or other)-provided social services, she explains.
Kitchen based on solidarity, veganism and volunteering
Vanja’s interest in this topic arose from her own experience as an activist and organizer of the Novi Sad Kitchen of Solidarity.
– Our kitchen is an anti-racist, feminist, anti-fascist, vegan space built on three key principles: solidarity, veganism, and volunteering. It is the only fully vegan kitchen of its type in Serbia. It is vegan because the founders believe that the only way to truly address the harm caused by current patriarchal systems is with a paradigm shift, one which recognizes that our relationship with non-human animals has masculinist, patriarchal roots. It is also entirely founded out of individual contributions, not grants or company donations, as it is anti-capitalist at its core. The kitchen’s “beneficiaries” participate in the day-to-day workings of the kitchen and decision-making.
Activism in solidarity with farmers
– In addition to cooking more than 200 meals twice a week, our kitchen participates in political action that is meaningful considering the key principles it was founded on. Of particular importance are issues and events related to poverty and perpetual pre-charity. That is why, as a kitchen, we decided to act in solidarity with farmers protesting in Novi Sad in the summer of 2022. Hundreds of farmers blocked off the center of the city with their tractors, promising to continue their blockade until their demands were met. They were asking for higher price floors for staple crops like wheat and corn in addition to better subsidies.
The kitchen stood in solidarity with the farmers by cooking a meal for them.
– I was one of the lead cooks at that time and I found myself very invested in making sure the meal turned out well. I was particularly worried as we are a vegan kitchen and were preparing a vegan meal for farmers who are overwhelmingly not vegan. I noticed that the act of cooking had in a split second connected me to these farmers in a way that simply going out and standing side-by-side with them in protest might not have done. The act of cooking together or of cooking for someone connects us across racial, gender, political, economic, and other lines. Looking into this act can help “bring the researcher down a peg” on equal footing with the subject of research.
Visiting as a Circle U. fellow
Vanja has been a part of the Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education at campus Blindern during her stay in Norway:
– Here in Oslo, with Professor Eivind Engebretsen and Professor Kristin M. Heggen, I am working on a paper that explores the potential of cooking as an ethnographic method. For many of us, kitchens are places of many meanings. For some, they have political connotations, others associate them with home and their family, but few of us have no feelings, memories, and opinions related to cooking and kitchens. It seems somewhat odd then that this space and very human, absolutely central to our survival, practice has not been explored for its methodological potential in ethnography and the social sciences and humanities in general.
Vanja applied for a mobility grant to broaden her horizon and discuss her ideas with as many professors and other colleagues as possible.
– I have had a wonderful experience here in Oslo. Professor Engebretsen and Professor Heggen have provided me with wonderful feedback. It has been a very encouraging experience for me.
Circle U. offers mobility possibilites for young researchers, students, professors and administrative staff. Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education cooperate with the the European Alliance. Here you can find more information on Circle U.