Multivariate strategies and identity negotiation of trans-local dietary adaptation of immigrant groups: A case study of Guangzhou City

Abstract

In the context of mobility, due to the collision between the home culture gene and local food culture, immigrant groups inevitably fall into the dilemma of maintaining the home dietary tradition and integrating into the local food culture, which leads to problems such as dietary adjustment and identity anxiety. Although scholars have discussed the adjustment strategies of floating population groups under the influence of different food cultures, most of them regard the relationship between adhering to the home dietary tradition and accepting the local food culture as a kind of opposition, ignoring the negotiation process of individual initiatives. From the perspective of cultural geography, this study took the immigrant group in Guangzhou City as the research object and analyzed the multiple strategies and identity negotiation adopted by them in the process of trans-local dietary adaptation. It was found that under the influence of different local dietary cultures, the strategies of trans-local dietary adaptation of floating population groups include dietary assimilation, dietary integration, dietary isolation, and dietary marginalization. Under different strategies, the daily diet practices of the immigrant group show different characteristics and complicate the original single identity. This study proposed an integrated analytical framework for trans-local dietary adaptation and discussed the relationship between multiple strategies of dietary adaptation and identity negotiation. It provides a new theoretical perspective for understanding migration and diet based on cultural geography theories, and may facilitate the dietary adaptation and social integration of floating population groups in practice.