01/07/2026 17:20 - 19:30

HALL: Pola - A206b

Contact: Soler F.

Chair: Arias J.

Food is never just sustenance. It is a material practice through which religious communities establish, maintain, and contest social hierarchies. From ancient Christianity debates to colonial impositions of "Christian" diets, religious food practices have served as powerful instruments for both naturalizing inequality and imagining more egalitarian communities. This interdisciplinary panel examines how religions have shaped and been shaped by food-related forms of social differentiation across diverse historical and geographical contexts.
This panel examines the relationship between religious food practices and inequality across three key areas. First, it examines the early Christian communities' use of food to negotiate social hierarchies, with ascetic diets creating spiritual distinctions. Second, it analyses modern theological views on gender and food, highlighting how dietary codes control and challenge gender inequalities. Third, it explores colonial Christianity's use of food to establish ethnic hierarchies in the Americas, subordinating indigenous foodways and imposing European norms.
Throughout, the panel addresses critical questions: Who eats what, with whom, when, and how much? How do religious food practices simultaneously express ideals of equality (the "open table") while creating exclusionary boundaries? How have subaltern communities resisted food-based hierarchies through syncretism and alternative commensality? What continuities exist between ancient medical-theological discourses on diet and modern intersections of religion, nutrition, and social justice?
By bringing together historical, theological, and anthropological perspectives, this panel demonstrates how the study of religious foodways illuminates broader patterns of how religions have variously reinforced and challenged specific forms of inequality: a question at the heart of understanding religion's role in contemporary society.