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The Politics of Belonging and Consumption: Migrant Use of Alternative Food Spaces in a Shifting Immigration Landscape
Loney, Meredith
Loney, Meredith
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Abstract
Food is an important way for migrant and refugee communities to create shared spaces and connect to their cultural identity. This is especially true in 2025, as immigration politics and rhetoric surrounding immigration has rapidly changed, leading to more extreme anti-immigration sentiments. While most current research on immigration policies and rhetoric focus on high-profile cases, it is equally important to understand the seemingly minute changes that are taking place in communities in the face of extreme anti-immigration discourse like changes in food-related practices and the use of alternative food spaces. Therefore, the aim of this study is to understand how the shifting immigration landscape is impacting the use of alternative food spaces for migrant and refugee communities in Vermont. To answer these research questions, this study uses qualitative semi-structured interviews with key informants who work in an alternative food space. This might include managers, employees, and volunteers for food access organizations, food shelves, grassroots organizations, and farmers markets. The qualitative data collected from these interviews works to answer key research questions by offering personal experiences about the shifting immigration landscape and changes within alternative food spaces. A thematic analysis of nine semi-structured interviews resulted in five overarching themes: increases in fear and anxiety, the role of food in social challenges, ways of maintaining cultural identity, resilience within migrant and refugee communities, and other challenges for alternative food spaces. These themes demonstrate the ways that the shifting immigration landscape is changing access to alternative food spaces for migrant and refugee communities and creating other social challenges, as well as how alternative food spaces are adapting to support these communities. Understanding how the shifting immigration landscape is changing access to alternative food spaces provides a better understanding of specific challenge immigrants and refugees face in their daily lives surrounding their food practices, as well as how immigrant and refugee communities remain resilient in the face of an immigration crisis. This research can help to inform others as to how migrant communities, alternative food spaces, and cultural identities can be supported.
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2026-05-08
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Global and Regional Studies