Cultures of Exile is a course offered at Clark through the Sustainability and Social Justice (SSJ) Department, taught by Prof. Anita Fábos.
This course explores both the concept and context of exile in the contemporary world from the perspective of those who experience it, create cultural artifacts about those experiences, and contribute to transformations–small and large–of the communities and cultures that shape their identity in exile. The course analyzes how race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, age, ability, citizenship, nationality, or ethnicity may frame an experience of exile in specific ways. While the course draws on social science analyses of exile, home, belonging, diaspora, transnationalism, and so forth, special emphasis will be given to narratives created by exiles themselves that explore these concepts.
For the Spring ’24 and Fall ’24 semesters, students in this course partnered with African Community Education (ACE) to complete a community-engaged project entitled, “Food, Culture, and Belonging in Worcester.” This project encourages students to expand their acquisition of knowledge of how mobile and/or displaced individuals and groups produce or adapt a food culture in a new setting. Students will learn about — and from — Worcester-based communities who have experienced forced movement, displacement, and/or exile, while exploring and identifying food practices and the different ways these relate to community and identity.
This community-engaged project with ACE has produced a variety of outputs, including:
- A StoryMap of African and Haitian Refugee and Migrant Foodways in Worcester
- Video recipes featuring African and Haitian migrants cooking up some of their favorite dishes
- Establishing a mini greenhouse supplied with various herbs and spices that are relevant to African and Haitian food cultures
