Labeling, naming, and grouping

At the end of 2022, one of the barbecue scholars I interviewed offered a salient point that I have contemplated ever since.

When asked about what should be done about instances when a reference is made or representation is presented of a particular food from a culture, but yet it isn't a true representation of the culture in terms of heritage as it relates to place (for example NC or SC barbecue), he replied,

I think we have to start taking a break from labeling...[culture] doesn't belong to the state it belongs to the people...the culture belongs to the people. State labels are politicized and manmade. But I believe the culture belongs to the people. If you look at the United States, down onto earth from the space station, you don't see state boundaries. You see landmarks. You see water, you see mountains (H. Conyers, personal communication, December 9, 2022).

This started to make me think about Stanford sociologist Matthew Snipp's work on race and ethnicity, and in particular Snipp's (2003) piece regarding census classification. Does our world really have to exist where we must choose a box. I don't like to be boxed in. I can't classify myself with a box or a checkmark. Instead of black or white or male or female, how about human?

The human condition to categorize, name, and label is innate; it's part of how we evolved to make sense of the world and later how we are taught. Children (and even adults) learn to group and label foods into 5 categories - fruits, vegetables, proteins, dairy, and grains. We are given names at birth (often multiples), and others including nicknames, and that is a label in a sense that we carry the rest of our lives. I will forever carry the name Barbz to many of my friends and Mouse to my mother.

Labeling and naming is part of language. However this urge that we have as humans to group things without consideration for those that are not included in a group has been detrimental to our society since the beginning of time. While I don't and am not denouncing grouping exclusively, I am denouncing it's use as a means of ostracizing or othering.

So to Dr. Conyers point - Barbecue - it's a "perfect conduit" and when we get caught up on labels we just create more of a divide.