Kai and Kōrero: How Food Fuels Change

By Pōneke Anti-fascist Coalition

Life can feel a bit overwhelming these days. But sometimes, the simplest acts, like sharing kai, can help.

Kai is woven into our most meaningful moments: blowing out candles on a birthday cake, lingering over coffee with friends, or stretching lunch into an all-day affair when the whānau gathers. Food bridges gaps. The phrase “breaking bread” exists because sharing a meal builds trust - whether forging new bonds or healing old rifts.

These bonds can help us in a number of ways, though its relationship to political change might not be so obvious. Community psychologists, like Catherine Campbell at the LSE, studied three examples of marginalised groups who were successful in influencing political change. Her team analysed three movements:

• Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement: won land rights for farmers from large land owners

• India’s People’s Health Movement: fought neoliberal healthcare policies and made healthcare more accessible to struggling communities

• South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign: secured HIV/AIDS medication for all.

Despite different contexts, they succeeded by:

• Building shared narratives (framing issues as systemic, not personal failures).

• Leveraging relationships with allies in media and influential political actors

• Making moral arguments (e.g., “No one should die from treatable illnesses”).

The Power of Shared Tables

Change starts in communities - often through kōrero (conversation). The Brazilian, Indian, and South African movements all began when people gathered to discuss their struggles. Over time, these talks distilled complex injustices into clear demands: Land. Healthcare. Medicine.

Here’s where kai matters. Food creates space for kōrero. Consider your own life: you might see classmates, colleagues, or teammates regularly but rarely truly talk. There are some people we feel like we would get on so well with, but just haven't seemed to bond with. Now imagine sitting down with friends for a meal. Stories flow. Walls drop. You discover common ground - maybe even common issues.

From Kai to Action

Not every meal sparks a revolution. The South African activists didn’t march straight to parliament; they first built networks through funerals (where communities grieved AIDS deaths together over food). Shared grief became a shared purpose.

This isn’t about advancing a cause or starting a national campaign. If anything, it's a suggestion to invite someone new to lunch. Suggest a group you’re involved with out for a drink. Try asking people “What frustrates you?”. Some of the things that are annoying us can feel a bit harder to talk about. After asking it to a few people, this question can reveal patterns, like unfair policies, campus issues, or something else just not feeling right. Perhaps it's something that can be changed.

Or maybe you’ll just make a friend. But as those Brazilian farmers showed, movements grow from countless small connections. So next time politics feels bleak, find a friend and put the kettle on. Pass the bread. Change begins at the table.