Supra as a Space of Female Agency: Women’s Roles in the Georgian Feast and Their Significance for Maintaining of National Identity

Year 2021, Issue: Special Issue - Gender in the Caucasus and in the Diaspora, 23 - 50, 20.02.2021

Natallia Paulovich

Abstract

A special significance granted to food preparation and its consumption contributes to the formation of the local identity. In Georgia, the supra, a massive feast organized for different occasions, is a great example of commensality and identity forming process. However, previous research does not recognize enough the role of women in the supra culture: it was mainly perceived as a male-dominated, ritualized gathering focused on alcohol consumption. This article presents Georgian highly ritualized feast from a perspective which takes into account the leading role that women play in it and retraces the mutual dependence between the massive scale of cooking that happens during the supra and women’s agency. Furthermore, this reevaluation, based on the ethnographic research conducted in Western Georgia in 2010-2015, shows that the amount of efforts which women devote to the cooking process influences not only their families, but also maintains the Georgian identity as a whole.

Keywords

Georgia, women, supra, food, cooking, identity, agency

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