Food of Belonging: How Shared Food Heritage Emerges Across Communities in Tourism Destinations

Similar food resources produce divergent heritage outcomes within the same tourism destination. Existing research has paid limited attention to the relational conditions through which food heritage becomes collectively organised across actors and domains. Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Primiero and Vanoi valleys (Italian Alps), combining participant observation, 17 semi-structured interviews, and 20 focus groups, this study adopts a qualitative, process-oriented, within-case comparative design informed by Actor–Network Theory. The analysis identifies four relational configurations through which cheese becomes mobilised across farming, hospitality, institutional, and tourism domains. The paper conceptualises 'Food of Belonging' as a relational condition, neither consensus nor shared cultural narrative, under which actors progressively relate their practices while maintaining distinct roles, interests, and forms of value, through three mechanisms: 'realisation', 'reciprocal translation', and 'adhesion through practice'. Food heritage thereby emerges as a relational accomplishment; institutional coordination alone cannot sustain integration when practices remain disconnected across domains.