{"id":84472,"date":"2019-04-10T15:12:45","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T13:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=84472\/"},"modified":"2019-04-26T14:12:49","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T12:12:49","slug":"is-meat-ok-student-potluck-in-the-age-of-identity-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/is-meat-ok-student-potluck-in-the-age-of-identity-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Is meat OK? Student potluck in the age of identity politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The room was booked, the date was set, and the Facebook event was made. The students of Advanced Migration Studies<\/secret> were going to host a julefrokost.<\/secret><\/p>\n

As Master’s students studying contemporary human migration at The Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen (a liberal-minded institution), the milleu of attendees was going to be unsurprisingly anti-establishment. As such, we decided that though the event took the name of the Danish cultural rite of the julefrokost we would buck tradition and create a feast of international holiday dishes for a lovely (and mostly non-denominational) evening.<\/p>\n

Eating pork or not shouldn\u2019t be an identity<\/p>\n

Student Janna Aldaraji, vegetarian<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Three days before the luncheon one of the Advanced Migration students posed a question on the event page, asking \u00bbCan we make this a vegetarian thing?\u00ab<\/p>\n

The suggestion was not surprising given that around 25 percent of the forty students in the program are committed vegetarians, and many of the others eat vegetarian food happily and often. There was some immediate support for the suggestion indicated by likes and emojis and enthusiastic comments.<\/p>\n

Potluck with limitations<\/h3>\n

I, however, along with Barbara, the Danish student with whom I was organizing the event, immediately felt a little hesitant. The suggestion of making the julefrokost a meat-free evening was completely fair and admirable. It is well known at this point that meat and animal by-product industries are a leading cause of climate change and environmental degradation and destruction globally. It is also a fact that in commercial settings the treatment of animals serving these industries is often lamentable, if not deplorable.<\/p>\n

So, there are some very legitimate and convincing reasons to reduce personal meat consumption or forego the food category entirely. However, the dilemma at hand was not \u00bbShould I be a meat-eater?\u00ab but rather, \u00bbShould we ask that everyone be a vegetarian for the evening?\u00ab<\/p>\n

For myself and Barbara this scenario thus quickly and honestly became a question of rights and freedoms (do not read this sentence as hyperbole). While there would be quite a few vegetarians in attendance there are also many students in the program who eat meat on a regular basis. And given that the purpose of the evening was to bring a favourite homemade holiday dish and enjoy each other\u2019s traditions it felt a little imposing to require that it be something meatless. What if a Spanish student had planned to bring charcuterie? Or an American student bacon and brussel sprouts? Or a Japanese student fried chicken?<\/p>\n

No rules, only encouragements<\/h3>\n

In the end Barbara and I replied and weighed in that we thought we should leave it open for people to decide what to bring, but that vegetarian dishes would be encouraged so that everyone could share in the food of the evening.<\/p>\n

The event went over beautifully with a delicious selection of international homemade and \u2026 get this \u2026 vegetarian dishes. In the end, the only dish that included meat of any kind was one of my two sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d, which had a bit of smoked white fish.<\/p>\n

Maybe a local chicken is a more climate friendly choice than soya beans from China<\/p>\n

Student Barbara H\u00f8jlund Jacobsen<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No One Brought Meat<\/p>\n

The fact that no one decided to bring meat-dishes is suspicious. Surely, student budgets are not amenable to bringing sumptuous dishes of prime rib and proscuitto wrapped chicken and seared scallops to potluck dinners. But I was left wondering if some attendees who might have otherwise brought a meat dish were deterred from doing so because they felt social pressure to go vegetarian for the evening. I can attest that I felt extremely conflicted about the following:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Was I being overly principled by arguing in the first place that meat should be allowed?<\/li>\n
  2. Was I somehow now obliged to bring a meat dish because I had argued that they should be allowed?<\/li>\n
  3. Was my bringing a meat dish now, after this whole discussion, going to be perceived as spiteful by my vegetarian friends?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Needless to say, I was uneasy about my new identity as a spokesperson for carnivors, not least because I personally believe that going meatless is an laudable thing to do, and one which I myself feel increasingly partial to.<\/p>\n

    Talking It Out Together<\/h3>\n

    I sat down afterwards with three fellow students, including the one that suggested we made the evening vegetarian to discuss our julefrokost- dilemma and reflect on how to make decisions relating to food politics in the future.<\/p>\n

    \u00bbI guess most of my friends are vegetarian so I am in a kind of bubble,\u00ab said Janna Aldaraji, who’s a vegetarian.<\/p>\n

    Barbara H\u00f8jlund Jacobsen said that she was shocked recently when she heard that consumption of meat in Denmark has not changed over the last few years, given that she feels she is surrounded by more vegetarian friends and options than ever before.<\/p>\n

    Maybe we\u2019ll decide to have a vegetarian p\u00e5skefrokost after all<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    She added: \u00bbI think some meat eaters are feeling that they are wrong now. And I\u2019ve seen some social consequences of that, where people suddenly feel very judged or targeted.\u00ab<\/p>\n

    Arla Eveliina who suggested we went vegetarian at the potluck, stated that in this area people should not be left with a choice, because eating meat is just not sustainable:<\/p>\n

    \u00bbIf we want to do something for the climate we need to take action and force ourselves to do things differently. People taking that choice alone will be too slow.\u00a0 The focus has to move toward political and structural change, like that the canteen at the university shouldn\u2019t serve meat and that the government should help find new jobs for people who work in the meat industry,\u00ab she said.<\/p>\n

    Janna, who share a home with six others, is not a super strict vegetarian herself and she respects that people have different diets:<\/p>\n

    \u00bbThere are times when I\u2019ve thought it causes more of a fuss not to eat meat. You don\u2019t always have to fight that fight. But I think there is a need for everyone to be a bit more open to taking on criticisms of their food habits and having open discussions that are less personal. It\u2019s so strange that what you eat can be so political and become a part of your identity. Eating pork or not shouldn\u2019t be an identity,\u00ab Janna said.<\/p>\n

    Barbara sometimes feels self-conscious eating meat, she said:<\/p>\n

    \u00bbI feel like I try to justify my decision on other parameters. I always buy expensive meat from animals that have been treated well and had a good life. But I almost feel worse eating an avocado than a chicken because my concerns are more with CO2<\/sub> than with animal rights. For me, at least, I want to challenge the assertion that eating meat is never sustainable: Maybe a local chicken is a more climate friendly choice than soya beans from China,\u00ab Barbara said.<\/p>\n

    Personal and sensitive<\/h3>\n

    Well, it is undeniable that decisions around what we eat are personal and sensitive, and that making those decisions and negotiating in a group setting poses challenges. Was the suggestion of having a vegetarian julefrokost enough to push an already receptive audience toward deciding to make a meatless dish? Was it constraints of student budgets that ensured our evening was almost entirely meat-free? Or are there simply so many herbivores studying migration?<\/p>\n

    Maybe we\u2019ll decide to have a vegetarian p\u00e5skefrokost<\/secret> after all.
    \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    An international group of students at Advanced Migration Studies decided to have a julefrokost. Then someone suggested a totally meat free menu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":84475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1835],"class_list":["post-84472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-vegetarianism","expression-feature_article"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs meat OK? 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The students of <secret text=\"The Master\u2019s degree in Advanced Migration Studies is an interdisciplinary two-year degree programme that combines humanities and social science approaches to migration, including ethnology, anthropology, sociology, sociology of religion, history, philosophy, political science, sociolinguistics, education, and literary and media studies. Source: studies.ku.dk\">Advanced Migration Studies<\/secret> were going to host a <secret text=\"Julefrokost means Christmas luncheon, and many Danes will attend several such events in November and December with work colleagues, friends and familiy. A julefrokost is usually a heavy affair with lots of meat dishes, pickled herring on rye and other sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d, schnapps and strong beer. The eating alone takes hours.\">julefrokost.<\/secret><\/p>\n<p>As Master’s students studying contemporary human migration at The Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen (a liberal-minded institution), the milleu of attendees was going to be unsurprisingly anti-establishment. As such, we decided that though the event took the name of the Danish cultural rite of the julefrokost we would buck tradition and create a feast of international holiday dishes for a lovely (and mostly non-denominational) evening.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Eating pork or not shouldn\u2019t be an identity<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Student Janna Aldaraji, vegetarian<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Three days before the luncheon one of the Advanced Migration students posed a question on the event page, asking \u00bbCan we make this a vegetarian thing?\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>The suggestion was not surprising given that around 25 percent of the forty students in the program are committed vegetarians, and many of the others eat vegetarian food happily and often. There was some immediate support for the suggestion indicated by likes and emojis and enthusiastic comments.<\/p>\n<h3>Potluck with limitations<\/h3>\n<p>I, however, along with Barbara, the Danish student with whom I was organizing the event, immediately felt a little hesitant. The suggestion of making the julefrokost a meat-free evening was completely fair and admirable. It is well known at this point that meat and animal by-product industries are a leading cause of climate change and environmental degradation and destruction globally. It is also a fact that in commercial settings the treatment of animals serving these industries is often lamentable, if not deplorable.<\/p>\n<p>So, there are some very legitimate and convincing reasons to reduce personal meat consumption or forego the food category entirely. However, the dilemma at hand was not \u00bbShould I be a meat-eater?\u00ab but rather, \u00bbShould we ask that everyone be a vegetarian for the evening?\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>For myself and Barbara this scenario thus quickly and honestly became a question of rights and freedoms (do not read this sentence as hyperbole). While there would be quite a few vegetarians in attendance there are also many students in the program who eat meat on a regular basis. And given that the purpose of the evening was to bring a favourite homemade holiday dish and enjoy each other\u2019s traditions it felt a little imposing to require that it be something meatless. What if a Spanish student had planned to bring charcuterie? Or an American student bacon and brussel sprouts? Or a Japanese student fried chicken?<\/p>\n<h3>No rules, only encouragements<\/h3>\n<p>In the end Barbara and I replied and weighed in that we thought we should leave it open for people to decide what to bring, but that vegetarian dishes would be encouraged so that everyone could share in the food of the evening.<\/p>\n<p>The event went over beautifully with a delicious selection of international homemade and \u2026 get this \u2026 vegetarian dishes. In the end, the only dish that included meat of any kind was one of my two sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d, which had a bit of smoked white fish.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Maybe a local chicken is a more climate friendly choice than soya beans from China<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Student Barbara H\u00f8jlund Jacobsen<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>No One Brought Meat<\/p>\n<p>The fact that no one decided to bring meat-dishes is suspicious. Surely, student budgets are not amenable to bringing sumptuous dishes of prime rib and proscuitto wrapped chicken and seared scallops to potluck dinners. But I was left wondering if some attendees who might have otherwise brought a meat dish were deterred from doing so because they felt social pressure to go vegetarian for the evening. I can attest that I felt extremely conflicted about the following:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Was I being overly principled by arguing in the first place that meat should be allowed?<\/li>\n<li>Was I somehow now obliged to bring a meat dish because I had argued that they should be allowed?<\/li>\n<li>Was my bringing a meat dish now, after this whole discussion, going to be perceived as spiteful by my vegetarian friends?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Needless to say, I was uneasy about my new identity as a spokesperson for carnivors, not least because I personally believe that going meatless is an laudable thing to do, and one which I myself feel increasingly partial to.<\/p>\n<h3>Talking It Out Together<\/h3>\n<p>I sat down afterwards with three fellow students, including the one that suggested we made the evening vegetarian to discuss our julefrokost- dilemma and reflect on how to make decisions relating to food politics in the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI guess most of my friends are vegetarian so I am in a kind of bubble,\u00ab said Janna Aldaraji, who’s a vegetarian.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara H\u00f8jlund Jacobsen said that she was shocked recently when she heard that consumption of meat in Denmark has not changed over the last few years, given that she feels she is surrounded by more vegetarian friends and options than ever before.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Maybe we\u2019ll decide to have a vegetarian p\u00e5skefrokost after all<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>She added: \u00bbI think some meat eaters are feeling that they are wrong now. And I\u2019ve seen some social consequences of that, where people suddenly feel very judged or targeted.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Arla Eveliina who suggested we went vegetarian at the potluck, stated that in this area people should not be left with a choice, because eating meat is just not sustainable:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIf we want to do something for the climate we need to take action and force ourselves to do things differently. People taking that choice alone will be too slow.\u00a0 The focus has to move toward political and structural change, like that the canteen at the university shouldn\u2019t serve meat and that the government should help find new jobs for people who work in the meat industry,\u00ab she said.<\/p>\n<p>Janna, who share a home with six others, is not a super strict vegetarian herself and she respects that people have different diets:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThere are times when I\u2019ve thought it causes more of a fuss not to eat meat. You don\u2019t always have to fight that fight. But I think there is a need for everyone to be a bit more open to taking on criticisms of their food habits and having open discussions that are less personal. It\u2019s so strange that what you eat can be so political and become a part of your identity. Eating pork or not shouldn\u2019t be an identity,\u00ab Janna said.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara sometimes feels self-conscious eating meat, she said:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI feel like I try to justify my decision on other parameters. I always buy expensive meat from animals that have been treated well and had a good life. But I almost feel worse eating an avocado than a chicken because my concerns are more with CO<sub>2<\/sub> than with animal rights. For me, at least, I want to challenge the assertion that eating meat is never sustainable: Maybe a local chicken is a more climate friendly choice than soya beans from China,\u00ab Barbara said.<\/p>\n<h3>Personal and sensitive<\/h3>\n<p>Well, it is undeniable that decisions around what we eat are personal and sensitive, and that making those decisions and negotiating in a group setting poses challenges. Was the suggestion of having a vegetarian julefrokost enough to push an already receptive audience toward deciding to make a meatless dish? Was it constraints of student budgets that ensured our evening was almost entirely meat-free? Or are there simply so many herbivores studying migration?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe we\u2019ll decide to have a vegetarian <secret text=\"The traditional Danish Easter luncheon (p\u00e5skefrokost) is pretty similar to the Christmas one i.e. lots of schnapps and beer and meat, but with more emphasis on egg and lamb dishes. A special kind of strong beer, p\u00e5skebryg, is usually served. The dining room is festooned with yellow and green flowers, tablecloths, napkins garlands etc.\">p\u00e5skefrokost<\/secret> after all.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"Dansk","identifier":"Nyhedsbrev","headline":"Modtag et ugentligt nyhedsoverblik i din inbox","button_text":"Tilmeld nu","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":43,"name":"Culture","slug":"culture","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":43,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":562,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":1835,"name":"Vegetarianism","slug":"vegetarianism","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1835,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":18,"name":"Feature Article","slug":"feature_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":18,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":1200,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/buffet.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84472"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85154,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84472\/revisions\/85154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}