Subaltern Gastronomy: A Cultural Reading of Shahu Patole’s Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada

Abstract

This article investigates the cultural and political significance of Dalit kitchens in Marathwada through the theoretical frameworks of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s notion of the subaltern voice. By examining food practices, culinary labour and modes of sustenance within Dalit households as represented in Shahu Patole’s Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada (2024) and related Dalit testimonial writings, the study articulates how gastronomy becomes a site of resistance and identity formation against caste-based exclusion. The Dalit kitchen, often marked by socio-spatial segregation, transforms into a counter-space that challenges the Brahminical politics of purity and pollution. Reading everyday acts of cooking and eating as embodied performances of subaltern agency, the article foregrounds how Dalit foodways disrupt hegemonic cultural capital and reclaim dignity through material and affective practices. Drawing on textual and cultural representations from Marathwada, this analysis situates Dalit gastronomy as both an archive of historical oppression and a living testimony of resilience, memory and reclamation.

Keywords

Dalit kitchens Marathwada subaltern gastronomy habitus caste and food cultural resistance

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