Panikos Panayi (born 18 October 1962) is a cultural historian known for his books on the social history of food, immigration, and inter-ethnic relations. [1]
Panikos Panayi was born in a Greek Cypriot parents Nestora and Chrystalla who migrated to Britain. [3] He was the oldest child with two sisters, Myllia and Roda. He completed his PhD at the University of Sheffield in 1988 on "Germans in Britain during the First World War, 1914-1918" under the supervision of Professor Colin Holmes and is part of the informally recognised Sheffield School of Migration and Prejudice. He is a cultural historian and has worked at De Montfort University in Leicester since 1990, becoming professor of European history there in 1999. [4] He writes on the social history of food and immigration. His books have been translated into German, French, and Japanese. [1]
In 2004 he attracted press attention, and was listed under "Know your enemy" on an extreme rightwing forum, by noting that a central element of English cuisine, fish and chips, had foreign origins, since fried fish was Jewish while chips were most likely French. Similarly, ice cream was brought to Britain by Italian street vendors in the 19th century. In his view, the popular perception that food is tied to national identity is wrong; instead, the food people eat indicates the integration of cultures. [5] [6] The global [2] press reaction included the Financial Times's "Kosher French Connection with Fish and Chips", and the Daily Star headline "Le Great Breetish Feesh and Cheeps: it's Frog Nosh Claims Prof", [7] which according to the historian Stuart Hilton triggered the hostile reaction from extreme rightwing political parties. [8]
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, reviewing Spicing up Britain in The Independent , stated that "Panikos Panayi has written extensively about migrants. His books surprise and gratify, draw readers into the alternative history of this mongrel nation [of Britain], unmade and remade by waves of outsiders", including German, Italian, and Spanish migrants. She found however that the style and language were turgid and indigestible, and that parts that should have been fascinating were "served up unappetisingly." [9] Times Higher Education wrote of the same book that Panayi avoided the trap of over-easy ethnic generalisation, and concluded that "If Panayi has an agenda, it is to wake up ignorant Brits, to make them realise how central immigrants have been to the development of the UK's economy and culture in the last century and a half." [2]
The English Historical Review described An Immigration History of Britain as an excellent synthesis of scholarship on immigrants' experiences. [10]
Panayi has been an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the University of Osnabrück at times between 1991 and 2014. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. [4]
Fusion cuisine is a cuisine that combines elements of different culinary traditions that originate from different countries, regions, or cultures. They can occur naturally and become aspects of culturally relevant cuisines, or they can be part of the post-1970s movement for contemporary restaurant innovations.
Xenophobia is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression which is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-group and an out-group and it may manifest itself in suspicion of one group's activities by members of the other group, a desire to eliminate the presence of the group which is the target of suspicion, and fear of losing a national, ethnic, or racial identity.
Fish and chips is a hot dish consisting of fried fish in batter, served with chips. The dish originated in England, where these two components had been introduced from separate immigrant cultures; it is not known who combined them. Often considered Britain's national dish, fish and chips is a common takeaway food in numerous other countries, particularly English-speaking and Commonwealth nations.
The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of racist historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin – especially Asians and Pacific Islanders – from immigrating to Australia, starting in 1901, in order to create an Anglo-Celtic ideal. The policy also affected immigrants from Germany, Italy, and other European countries, especially in wartime. Governments progressively dismantled such policies between 1949 and 1973.
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchangeably, and for cultural pluralism in which various ethnic and cultural groups exist in a single society. It can describe a mixed ethnic community area where multiple cultural traditions exist or a single country within which they do. Groups associated with an indigenous, aboriginal or autochthonous ethnic group and settler-descended ethnic groups are often the focus.
English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but is also very similar to wider British cuisine, partly historically and partly due to the import of ingredients and ideas from the Americas, China, and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.
Cultural conservatism is described as the protection of the cultural heritage of a nation state, or of a culture not defined by state boundaries. It is usually associated with criticism of multiculturalism, anti-immigration sentiment, and opposition to illegal immigration. Because their monocultural ideologies are in conflict with those of anti-racism, cultural conservatives are often accused of racism. Cultural conservatism is sometimes focused upon threatened language revitalization, such as of the Distinctive local dialect of French in Quebec, Acadian French, Canadian Gaelic, and the Mi'kmaq language in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, or the Irish language in Newfoundland. Other times cultural conservatism is more focused upon the preservation of an ethnic minority's endangered culture, such as those of Native Americans.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a British journalist and author. A columnist for the i newspaper and the Evening Standard, she is a commentator on immigration, diversity, and multiculturalism issues.
British Asians are British citizens of Asian descent. They constitute a significant and growing minority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with 6.9% of the population identifying as Asian/Asian British in the 2011 United Kingdom census. This represented a national demographic increase from a 4.4% share of UK population in 2001.
The United Kingdom is an ethnically diverse society. The largest ethnic group in the United Kingdom is White British, followed by Asian British. Ethnicity in the United Kingdom is formally recorded at the national level through a census. The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded a reduced share of White British people in the United Kingdom from the previous 2001 United Kingdom census. Factors that are contributing to the growth of minority populations are varied in nature, including differing birth rates and Immigration.
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory in which they are not citizens. Illegal immigration occurs when people immigrate to a country without having official permission to do so. Opposition to immigration ranges from calls for various immigration reforms, to proposals to completely restrict immigration, to calls for repatriation of existing immigrants.
British cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom, including the cuisines of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. According to food writer Colin Spencer, historically, British cuisine meant "unfussy dishes made with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to accentuate flavour, rather than disguise it". International recognition of British cuisine was historically limited to the full breakfast and the Christmas dinner. However, Celtic agriculture and animal breeding produced a wide variety of foodstuffs for indigenous Celts. Wine and words such as beef and mutton were brought to Britain by the Normans while Anglo-Saxon England developed meat and savoury herb stewing techniques before the practice became common in Europe. The Norman conquest introduced exotic spices into Great Britain in the Middle Ages.
The historical immigration to Great Britain concerns the movement of people, cultural and ethnic groups to the British Isles before Irish independence in 1922. Immigration after Irish independence is dealt with by the article Immigration to the United Kingdom since Irish independence.
Turks in the Netherlands refers to people of full or partial Turkish ethnicity living in the Netherlands. They form the largest ethnic minority group in the country; thus, the Turks are the second-largest ethnic group in the Netherlands after the ethnic Dutch. The majority of Dutch Turks descend from the Republic of Turkey; however, there has also been significant Turkish migration waves from other post-Ottoman countries including ethnic Turkish communities which have come to the Netherlands from the Balkans, the island of Cyprus, as well as from other parts of the Levant. More recently, during the European migrant crisis significant waves of Turkish minorities from Syria and Kosovo have also arrived in the Netherlands. In addition, there has been migration to the Netherlands from the Turkish diaspora; many Turkish-Belgians and Turkish-Germans have arrived in the country as Belgian and German citizens.
All for Australia is a 1984 book by Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey. It criticises Australian immigration policy and the direction in which it is pushing the country. The book examines the way policy developed in the 1970s and 1980s and explores what Blainey views as the disproportionately high levels of Asian immigration to Australia since the mid-1970s.
Criticism of multiculturalism questions the ideal of the maintenance of distinct ethnic cultures within a country. Multiculturalism is a particular subject of debate in certain European nations that are associated with the idea of a nation state. Critics of multiculturalism may argue against cultural integration of different ethnic and cultural groups to the existing laws and values of the country. Alternatively critics may argue for assimilation of different ethnic and cultural groups to a single national identity.
Multiculturalism in Australia is today reflected by the multicultural composition of its people, its immigration policies, its prohibition on discrimination, equality before the law of all persons, as well as various cultural policies which promote diversity, such as the formation of the Special Broadcasting Service.
Racism in the United Kingdom refers to negative attitudes and views on race or ethnicity within the viewpoints of groups or individuals or existing systemically in the United Kingdom. The extent and the targets of racist attitudes in the United Kingdom have varied over time. It has resulted in cases of discrimination, riots and racially motivated murders. Racism was uncommon in the attitudes and norms of the British class system during the 19th century, in which race mattered less than social distinction: an African tribal chief was unquestionably superior to an English costermonger. Use of the word "racism" became more widespread after 1936, although the term "race hatred" was used in the late 1920s by sociologist Frederick Hertz. Laws were passed in the 1960s that specifically prohibited racial segregation.
Food in England is a 1954 book by the social historian Dorothy Hartley. It is both a cookery book and a history of English cuisine. It was acclaimed on publication; the contemporary critic Harold Nicolson described the book as a classic. It has remained in print ever since.