"Is it Halal?": exploring the food practices of Muslim Canadian women

For many Muslims, eating halal food is an everyday practice of religious and/or ethnic self-identification. In Canada, where Muslims are a religious and often ethnic minority, choosing to eat only halal food (foods deemed permissible according to Islamic guidelines), requires intention, adaptability, and sometimes sacrifice. This study examines individual and socially navigated halal food practices of observant Muslim women from a mosque in Victoria, BC. Drawing on Butler's performativity theory, I explore how my interlocutors define, select, prepare, consume, and share halal food as a component of their religious performance and negotiation of identity. I discuss how, although diversely interpreted and negotiated, halal food practices are a corporeal site for meaning making – meaning that is constructed both privately and communally and embedded with Islamic ideals and collective histories.