'Tasteful' cosmopolitanism - food, consumption and cultural distinction in an ethnic greengrocer in Copenhagen

Based on an ethnographic study in a Lebanese greengrocer in Nørrebro in central Copenhagen, the paper asks about the nature of everyday cosmopolitan culture, as it gets performed through food consumption. The field study shows examples of a transcultural multi-culture among both customers and staff. It also shows examples of how the senses – especially odour and taste – play a role in the development of a convivial metropolitan culture (Rhys-Taylor 2013). However, there are also examples that suggest a type of corner-shop cosmopolitanism (Wessendorf 2010) where, at the end of the day, cultures remain mosaic and separate. Following this, the paper asks if there is a critical backside to everyday cosmopolitanism. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of distinction (1979), which he uses to show how culture and consumption continuously contribute to the reproduction of modern society’s class system, the paper shows examples of how middleclass cosmopolitan food consumption can indeed be regarded as means of white middleclass cultural distinction. The argument is, that even if everyday cosmopolitanism does, on the one hand, allow for diversity training and the diminishing of cultural difference it might also work quite oppositely in everyday performances where it is used as a means to stand out and signal confidence with cultural difference while consequently reproducing the exact same differences and maintaining social/class hierarchies.