Culinary Spaces for Subaltern Sites of Resistance: A Subaltern Studies Reading of Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada by Shahu Patole
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1512.11Keywords:
subaltern studies, cultural identity, poverty alleviation, the resilience of the poor, social protectionAbstract
This study, grounded in subaltern studies and culinary nationalism, explores how Dalit kitchens in Marathwada serve as spaces of cultural and political resistance to caste hierarchies. It examines Shahu Patole's Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada and how Dalit culinary practices, particularly the consumption of non-vegetarian foods like beef, challenge Brahminical purity-pollution notions and assert Dalit identity. Dalit kitchens, through the act of defying food taboos, become sites of cultural resistance, subverting caste-based oppression. Drawing on Marathi Saint Literature, the paper highlights the role of Dalit women as custodians of cultural identity within these kitchens, asserting agency in spaces historically limited by caste and gender restrictions. The research positions food as both a medium of self-assertion and symbolic resistance, transforming the kitchen into a site of resilience. Additionally, it critiques the pervasive caste-based food discrimination, especially the marginalisation of non-vegetarian diets, as tools of social control. The study emphasises how food practices among Dalits, through subtle everyday acts of defiance, challenge the caste system and reclaim their rightful place in India's socio-cultural landscape. Through this analysis, the Dalit kitchen is seen as a domestic space and a political arena where culinary choices actively resist caste domination. The study underscores food's power in resistance and the kitchen's role as a subaltern site of identity and agency in the face of entrenched caste norms.
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