Accompanying 2022

Social and cultural anthropologist Chiara Garbellotto visited the container at all four cities for about a week each. In the process, she conducted participant observation, informal conversations, and interviews with participants and members of the volunteer groups. She also offered a flash ethnography workshop at three of the four cities. Using emotional mapping, workshop participants learned about the different emotions that different places in the city can evoke in people, depending on what they had experienced there or associate with it. This was a simple way to approach the topic of differences in a playful way.

In the end, she summarized her findings in a manual titled “A Compass towards a better Us – Invitation to on-going Questioning for existing and new Communities.”

Through her research, Chiara was able to identify many opportunities and challenges that play a central role in community (re)building, for example, the organizational structure and hierarchies in the volunteer team, the different social positions of team members on which these are based, the choice, design and possibilities of their own kitchen as a place to meet and the successful process of a cooking evening so that differences are not ignored but acknowledged appreciatively.

In addition to insights into the process and results of the research, the manual includes working tools in the form of reflection questions and methods for addressing these questions. These tools can be used by Beyond the Plate Satellites as well as other communities. In doing so, Chiara invites groups to continually critique each other, move to a deeper level of conversation, and thereby grow together into a stronger community.