Besides conflicts concerning land and natural resources, geopolitical tensions can also arise from disputes around ownership of certain cultural heritage. Indonesia and Malaysia have been embroiled in this tension for many years. The two neighboring nation-states have jostled each other over the issue of ownership of the song “Rasa Sayang,” gamelan instrument, pendet dance, and rendang dish. Having been designated by CNN as the world’s best food, the debate surrounding Rendang is at least as hot as the dish itself. Jakarta was furious when Kuala Lumpur claimed rendang as one of its national dishes. Many Indonesians accused their neighboring country of stealing their precious cultural icons. The anger over such issues sparked heated spats on the internet and spilled to the streets, where some Indonesians took threatening actions toward Indonesians residing in Indonesia (Chong, 2012).
By accusation of theft, no one indicts that Malaysians take all existing rendang in Indonesian territory, nor that Malaysians/or its government claim that no Indonesian may cook rendang in their own kitchens or put it in their cookbooks. Instead, the theft accusation revolves around the right to claim a cuisine as originating from a certain community in a specific geographical location and not others. With this right to claim as originator comes the national pride and the right to use it as a magnet for culinary tourism and another monetization mechanism. The process and vindication of a nation’s claim also bolsters nationalism and affirms the distinctness of its identity. Hence, the issue is political economic in nature.
Beyond Indonesia-Malaysia, similar political and economic dynamics happen worldwide. The Hummus War, for example, erupted on the internet among various Middle Eastern nations, especially Lebanon and Israel, over the claim of the originator of hummus (Ariel, 2012). Turkey and Greece still quarrel over who creates the first and best Baklava (Perry, 1994). Even a dish’s name can kindle this political-economic, such as the rechristening of Americano into the Canadiano after Trump resumed his tariff war in his second term. Maria E. Garcia uses gastropolitics to name this entanglement of cuisine, be it traditional or modern, with nationalism and economic interest (Garcia, 2021). Others have adopted kindred notions. Michaela DeSoucey calls it gastronationalism, while Priscilla P. Ferguson dubs it culinary nationalism (DeSoucey, 2010; Ferguson, 2010).
As Garcia has argued, deeply embedded in these political disputes is a way of thinking shaped heavily by Modernity/coloniality that skewed the discourse surrounding cuisine, ownership, race, and economy (Garcia, 2021, pp. 60ff.). In the case of rendang, Jinn W. Chong exemplifies the well-trodden path of invoking the disputed cuisine as a shared cultural heritage of multiple nations from the same socio-cultural grouping, namely the Malay people from the Malay world (Chong, 2012, pp. 8ff.). This, however, reiterates the colonial classification that the Western powers employ in administering their territory and subjects. While the concept highlights some similarities, it homogenizes, essentializes, and represses myriad diverse communities that fall into the classification. Furthermore, overreliance on the notion of race on this issue will reinforce the racial capitalist logic that underscores the extractive processes. Borders of Modern nation-states rarely conform to or care about the boundaries of unique communities that make up those nations. These borders pay more attention to the political and economic interests of the ruling elites that drew the lines on a map. Operating in the racial capitalist logic will not open the path to question the whole notion of ownership by a nation-state and cuisine as heritage. How could a nation that has only existed less than 80 years claim ownership of and right to benefit economically and politically from a cuisine that has been cooked and eaten for centuries, even from the time in memorial?
This presentation will offer an alternative framework to understand cuisine as a cultural heritage from the perspective of cultural commons. I approach the topic not from a legal or historical perspective but from a political economic and theological anthropologic angle. I challenge coloniality that lurks beyond ownership of cuisine by nation-states. I will move beyond the political economic memory as a framework to explain gastropolitics (Holtzman, 2006). I will propose cultural commons as the most helpful framework for understanding cultural heritages like these traditional cuisines.
Following Elinor Ostrom, Charlotte Hess, and Christian Barrere, I understand cultural commons as the communal management of certain practices, cultural goods, or knowledge in which each actors participate, to differing degrees, in the process of perpetuation, modification, and formalization (Hess, 2012; Barrere, 2012; Ostrom, 2003). The ongoing process of communal management is called commoning. Other examples of cultural commons are languages, meme culture, and scientific/artistic guilds. These communities that benefit, sustain, and modify these cultural commons vary in size, demography, relational tightness, and geographical distribution. In the case of language, the community is global. Although famous institutions have the power to publish “official” dictionaries, it is the ordinary people who often modify the cultural commons with new words like selfie and rizz that are then inducted into the formalized forms of the commons. Adopting this framework counters the operative framework that enables the accusation that “Nation X steals our national cuisine.” Cultural commons correct this Modern/colonial assumption that any cultural heritage can be seen as the exclusive intellectual property of a particular community located in a specific geographical location (cultural district). As an alternative political economic framework, commoning enables the conflicting communities to see each other as fellow appropriators of the tasty cultural commons. Through careful works of historiography, one may or may not decide the dish’s geographical and social origin. However, cultural commons open the possibility of everyone perpetuating and developing the cuisine deserves to benefit from the commons proportionally according to their contribution to the cultural commons. This includes the related communities separated by national borders, diasporic communities that keep improvising their traditional cuisine in their new land with new ingredients, and global communities that cherish the cuisine as a part of their own lives.
Culinary heritage disputes, such as the Indonesia-Malaysia rendang controversy, illustrate how cuisine becomes entangled with political economic interests. Dubbed as gastropolitics, such conflicts often involve accusations of theft. Nation-states quarrel over the right to claim the dish as their national cuisine and leverage it to bolster nationalism and augment tourism for economic gain. This presentation critiques the racial capitalist logic underlying gastropolitics, where modern nation-states assert ownership over cultural heritage that oftentimes are older than the nation-states themselves. Against this framework, I propose understanding cuisine through the lens of cultural commons, as conceptualized, among others, by Elinor Ostrom, Charlotte Hess, and Christian Barrere. Cultural commons emphasize communal management, shared stewardship, and dynamic evolution. As an alternative political economy, it moves beyond rigid notions of national ownership. By reframing cuisine as a collectively sustained and evolving heritage, this approach fosters a more inclusive and equitable recognition of culinary traditions, acknowledging the contributions of diverse communities beyond national boundaries.