Taste diaspora: the aesthetic and material practice of belonging

Abstract

A particular 'Turkish taste in Vienna', which has been formed through experiences of migration from Turkey and resettlement in Vienna, serves as a significant aesthetic and social medium for constituting a collective sense of belonging. This article explores how Turkish people in Vienna constitute, perform and enunciate belongings through practices and discourses around travelling forms and spaces of material culture. Underpinned by an ethnography founded on a repertoire of Turkish objects in Vienna, this article addresses the relational constitution of a particular taste and a diasporic belonging within a specific context of displacement and relocation of both people and material objects. 'Taste diaspora' refers to a certain diasporic sphere that is formed through a collective taste in material objects and enunciated in the aesthetics of the everyday. © The Author(s) 2014.