Forward

Govanhill is Scotland’s most diverse neighbourhood, reflecting the nation’s commitment to inclusivity and diversity. Intrigued by this dynamic and the local impact, I delved into Govanhill’s community life. Research and a field trip unveiled the pivotal role of personal narratives and storytelling in bridging cultural gaps and fostering unity among diverse backgrounds.

Eager to contribute, I contemplated celebrating cultural diversity through my work and showcasing Govanhill as a potential model for other communities. Participating in Milk Café’s events allowed me to immerse myself as both an observer and a participant, granting me profound insights into culture’s intricacies. While cultural disparities may loom large, embracing personal narratives reveals our shared humanity and diverse cultural imprints. Viewing culture through personal narratives dispels biases and judgments stemming from perceived differences.

A little bit of context

Integration: as a two-way learning process.

“Both migrants and the host society contribute to a common culture, while a sense of diversity and cultural heritage is retained.”

Community cohesion: essential in the coexistence of different groups of people.

“Community cohesion is what must happen in all communities to enable different groups of people to get on well together. Integration is a key contributor to successful Community Cohesion.”

Insights from the immersive experience at Milk Café

Milk Café is a social enterprise that aims to help refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants’ integration. It provides a welcoming community space for workshops, activities and assistance.

I started my two weeks of immersive participant observation at Milk Café. I mainly participated in Wednesday’s Women’s group and Friday’s English Conversation Cafe.

I gained four insights from my experience there…

• Personal identity: People carry identity themes, which makes their narratives unique.
• Community: Community as cultural identity, place, and shared value.
• Communication: Construct a concept from different perspectives.
• Food: Edible identities, food as cultural heritage.

After synthesis, I found a positive loop and understood the context as follows:

The goal is to build community cohesion, with personal narrative lying in the centre, and the way to evoke narrative is by taking food as a conversation icebreaker and constructing the concept from different perspectives so that people learn new things from each other. The key part and the starting point is the inclusion. The opportunity seems clear…

How can we inclusively utilize the construction of concepts of foods to promote personal narratives, thereby strengthening culturally diverse community cohesion?

Final outcome: Community recipe library

The design outcome at this stage is a community recipe library as a service touchpoint of Milk Café’s food sessions, showcasing the diverse cultural heritages of the community, acting as a community asset and a storyteller. After several food sessions, the recipes can be published as regularly issued magazines to expand its impact. Also, the program can have social accounts that post photos and videos to promote lively presentations to the community.

Potentials are other organizations in the community or other communities that can refer and learn from this model and create their own community asset. In the future, the opportunity would be that different communities have different assets, and overall, it shapes a more diverse represented Scotland, yet the common culture is celebrating the diversity.

For details, please see the project document on the top.