EPISODE 1 of Dispersion Season 2 is NOW LIVE!

The Zoryan Institute is pleased to announce that Dispersion Season 2, Episode 1: Why Can’t We All Just Eat Hummus and Get Along with Guests Samira Mohyeddin and Shayan Lallani is NOW LIVE on all of your favourite podcast platforms!

In this inaugural episode of Season 2, Samira and Shayan discuss how food contributes to identity formation and cultural connection, and how they have come to understand food as a political tool. This episode explores community building, multiculturalism, racism, and cultural erasure and assimilation as they relate to food.

The Dispersion podcast brings diverse Diasporic Canadians together to engage in conversations centered around identity, home, and belonging. This is done with the aim of challenging stereotypes and discrimination, and promoting tolerance and understanding.

Season two has an exciting line-up of episodes and engaging conversations that you don’t want to miss. Stay tuned to hear our guests dive deep on a number of interesting topics as they relate to religion, gender, conflict and the experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

“Food can also be used as a political tool. You can see the nasty sides of nationalism creeping into that, although it can also be a beautiful thing in which people find their identity through it, or restore things that other states were trying to erase”.

– Samira Mohyeddin

“It seems to me as though in a multicultural era – or at least when multiculturalism has become a political discourse or tool – food has become a safe way to try and experience other cultures, but also a way to reinforce one’s own perceptions of other cultures…”
– Shayan Lallani

New episodes of Dispersion will be released every Monday at 12:00 pm EST on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Acast, and Google Podcasts.

Interested in learning more about Diaspora and Food? For each episode of Dispersion released over the coming weeks, University of Toronto Press Journals will be making related academic papers from the Institute’s journal, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies free to read. This week, read more about how diasporas relate and form identities and relationships with their culture and homeland with food by reading the articles below.

Fischer, J. (2005). Feeding Secularism: Consuming Halal among the Malays in London. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 14(2-3), 275-297.

McCann, J. C. (2006). A Response: Doro Fänta: Creativity vs. Adaptation in the Ethiopian Diaspora. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 15(2-3), 381-388.