Commensality in Socially Engaged Practices

This Practice as Research (PaR) PhD investigates commensality as both a performance form and a methodological approach within socially engaged practices. Through the development of two multi-component projects—with bread (2018-2021) and Eat the Archives (2019-2021)—this research examines how shared meals can act as sites of performance, knowledge production, and political engagement.

The thesis offers critical insights into commensality as a performance form, arguing that it is not only a representational strategy but also an active, reflexive mode of social engagement. It proposes that commensality’s performative qualities, such as structured interactions, role reversals, and sensory participation, enable the co-construction of meaning and community.

Drawing from performance studies including Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s approach to food performance (1999) and Erika Fischer-Lichte’s autopoietic feedback loop (2009), food studies approaches rooted in Claude Fischler’s study of commensality (2011), and emerging from a lineage of socially engaged and feminist practices such as the work of Bobby Baker, Rajni Shah and Quarantine, this thesis develops a commensal performance methodology which enables the generation of embodied, affective, and communal forms of inquiry. In doing so, it advocates for an approach to research that is both participatory and deeply situated in everyday life.

As a performance practice, commensality emerges as a dynamic and participatory framework that extends beyond the stage, integrating elements of ritual, activism, and hospitality. The research foregrounds its potential for creating spaces of transformation—whether through the theatrical mise-en-scène of with bread or the archival reimagining of domestic dining in Eat the Archives. In these projects, the act of eating together becomes an artistic and political gesture, emphasising the potential of commensality to explore modes of interaction and knowledge production through food-based exchanges.

By positioning commensality as both subject and method, this study contributes to ongoing conversations about the intersections of performance, food, and social engagement, and offers a reflection on the significance and transformative potential of commensality as a performative and political act.