Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05401002
Elaine Salo
This essay argues that food—particularly the labor of preparing and producing food—should be seen as central to South African feminism, and to African feminisms more broadly. Salo explains how women provide the majority of the labor to produce food on the African continent, yet often are exposed to hunger because they do not own the means to food production. Moreover, as agribusiness encroaches on foodways and food production lands in Africa, this sector attempts to incorporate women in ways that continue to render them gendered subordinates in an unequal economic and political system. Centering food provides an important means for African feminists to continue recognizing the imbrication of gendered oppression with colonialism and neocolonialism, and to challenge these hierarchies while pursuing sustainability and social justice. Women’s agencies as food producers also offer alternatives to agribusiness and corporate food, including small-scale farming or gardening projects that intersect with political activism in urban and peri-urban areas. Salo discusses how such African women’s strategies align with concepts such as food sovereignty and ecofeminism, but also need to be recognized as occurring beyond the cultures of academic expertise often associated with such terms.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05401009
Léo Joubert
In the Global South, the adoption of the so-called Western diet in recent decades has resulted in a global pandemic of obesity and lifestyle-related diseases. However some academics argue that this diet should be reframed as the ‘neoliberal’ diet, one which is the outcome of a profit-driven industrial food system in which large multi-national corporations have disproportionate power to make, distribute, promote, and sell their products. Instead of framing lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases (NCD s) as the personal failure of the individual, this lens calls for a critique of a food system which shapes individual food and lifestyle choices. Yet social attitudes remain slow to respond to this shifting view of this pressing food-related NCD public health issue. Sugar is a key part of the formulation of many ultra-processed foods that are responsible for poor diet-related health outcomes. Hit Me(n) uses protest art as a communications tool to reframe the issue for the audience. It draws attention to the dopamine system in the brain by juxtaposing sugar alongside other addictive substances and behaviours that drive similar pleasure-seeking patterns. It further draws attention to the role that corporate and product branding plays in normalising and glorifying certain addiction-linked substances and behaviours. It questions who has the power to shape the system, and who does not.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05401004
Donna Andrews, Lauren Paremoer
This paper explores how the normalization of ‘breast is best’ has conceptualized women’s agency in relation to their role as (breast)feeders and how this has contributed to a very particular framing of women as working in private for the ‘public’ good. It does so by critically evaluating three case studies in which breastfeeding was framed as the best source of food for newborns: the 1970s campaigns against baby formula manufacturers, efforts during the early 2000s to assure HIV-positive mothers that they should breastfeed, and more contemporary framings by the agroecology movement of breastfeeding as the “first act of food sovereignty.” In each of these case studies we reflect on how the costs that this particular food/feeding practice imposes on women are obscured, ignored, or normalized. We suggest that breastfeeding, and exclusive breastfeeding in particular, often functions as a hegemonic practice, because breastfeeding is configured as ultimately being the personal responsibility of individual women (biological mothers). In what sense is this practice hegemonic? The case studies show that breastfeeding tends to be understood as something that is a universal good, but in practice constrains the agency of breastfeeding women and normalizes the status of women (and mothers in particular) as a dominated social group.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05401008
R. Chipuriro, K. Batisai
In South Africa, the politicisation of COVID-19 widened structural fissures, unearthed underlying inequalities, and exposed the ‘rainbow nation’ fallacy. The pandemic highlighted the struggles faced by marginalised households whose income streams were wiped out during lockdown. Public unrest emerged in townships and manifested as food protests, which undermined the perception of South Africa as a food secure country. Whilst the state and mainstream media dismissed these protests as criminal incidences, a contextualised analysis exposes the desperation of certain groups’ experiences of hunger and disillusionment in Black South African townships. Framing ‘food as political’, this paper interrogates the weaponisation of food by the government, which violently used state security forces to subdue marginalised populations. The paper draws on Dambudzo Marechera’s 1978 novella House of Hunger to condemn the gendered and militarised state response to ‘starving black bodies.’ It exposes the ruthlessness of how the state worked with mainstream media to protect corporate capital and foreign investments in the name of ‘security’ and ‘wellbeing,’ and explores the ultimate ‘logic’ of food protests in South African urban areas. In conclusion, the paper argues that the mainstream media hyper-visualised Black bodies as unruly, criminal, and therefore disposable, in order to dismiss their human right to food.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05401006
Anyona Ondigi
This study is an ethnographic account of an ethnic restaurant of the Somali immigrant community in South Africa. It seeks to examine the role that a Somali restaurant plays with regard to the food cooked, served, and consumed as well as the linguistic and non-linguistic ways in which the guests, Somalis and non-Somalis, negotiate their ethnic and national identities and communities in relation to the food and the wider physical and social context of the restaurant, located in the Bellville region of South Africa. A secular environment, South Africa can also be described as fairly xenophobic and Afrophobic. For the collection of data, the study focused on the restaurateur, employees, and guests. The findings indicated that through food memories, habits, and practices, and an aura of conviviality and homeliness, the Somali and non-Somali immigrants developed and sustained a sense of community and solidarity. This is as opposed to the mainly commercial and uniform feel of western (or American) (or) fast food restaurants. As a corollary of this, it is the case that immigrants carry with them norms and values which ought to be drawn from by the host society.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05401001
Ben Jamieson Stanley, Desiree Lewis, Lynn Mafofo
Introducing a special issue of Matatu titled “South African Food Studies,” this essay argues for the importance of food as a lens for understanding contemporary culture and society. More specifically, the essay advocates for recentring Global South contexts—in this case South Africa—in a ‘food studies’ conversation that has often been dominated by the American academy; it also underscores the vitality of the humanities, qualitative social sciences, and creative arts for transcending reductive ‘food security’ paradigms often applied in the Global South. The essay first examines the short story “Water No Get Enemy” by South African writer Fred Khumalo, introducing how a focus on food and eating can illuminate globalisation, xenophobia, resource conflict, and environmental change. From here, the authors introduce the evolving field of ‘food studies,’ then outline the eight academic, personal, and creative pieces that constitute this special issue, all authored by contributors from the African continent. Issues raised include the gendered and queer politics of food, breastmilk, and soil; the ongoing coloniality of neoliberal approaches to food inequality; the burdening of Black bodies; the role of so-called ‘ethnic restaurants’ in building transnational and multi-ethnic communities; and the heightened stakes of food access during the COVID-19 pandemic.
{"title":"South African Food Studies","authors":"Ben Jamieson Stanley, Desiree Lewis, Lynn Mafofo","doi":"10.1163/18757421-05401001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757421-05401001","url":null,"abstract":"Introducing a special issue of Matatu titled “South African Food Studies,” this essay argues for the importance of food as a lens for understanding contemporary culture and society. More specifically, the essay advocates for recentring Global South contexts—in this case South Africa—in a ‘food studies’ conversation that has often been dominated by the American academy; it also underscores the vitality of the humanities, qualitative social sciences, and creative arts for transcending reductive ‘food security’ paradigms often applied in the Global South. The essay first examines the short story “Water No Get Enemy” by South African writer Fred Khumalo, introducing how a focus on food and eating can illuminate globalisation, xenophobia, resource conflict, and environmental change. From here, the authors introduce the evolving field of ‘food studies,’ then outline the eight academic, personal, and creative pieces that constitute this special issue, all authored by contributors from the African continent. Issues raised include the gendered and queer politics of food, breastmilk, and soil; the ongoing coloniality of neoliberal approaches to food inequality; the burdening of Black bodies; the role of so-called ‘ethnic restaurants’ in building transnational and multi-ethnic communities; and the heightened stakes of food access during the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":35183,"journal":{"name":"Matatu","volume":"177 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139209694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05401005
Pamella Gysman
The tastes and consumption patterns of the black middle class of South Africa have long been of interest to both media and researchers. The majority of this interest has been disproportionately focused on the lower end of the black middle class, with few researchers exploring the black middle class as bona fide bearers of cultural capital or how they legitimise their cultural capital and social status. Prevailing perceptions portray a homogenous, irresponsible, vapid, shallow and materialistic group obsessed with status. Based on a study which took a phenomenological exploration of the black middle class’s negotiation of ‘self’ and identity, this paper presents an analysis of how members of the contemporary black middle class of South Africa use social media; food narratives; and messages about taste, culinary skill, and food knowledge to craft empowering self-images. Focusing on two compelling performances—‘eating without food’ and ‘the cultured palate’ (my terms)—I draw attention to the complex ways in which this group navigate classed and racialised worlds. The analysis reveals that by developing what may seem to be unremarkable performative acts related to eating, preparing, and displaying food, members of the black middle class craft group identity and create ‘selves’ that reveal ingenuity and thoughtful knowledge about food, taste, global culture and their classed and racialised social positions.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05401003
Yvette Abrahams
This paper takes a novel perspective on food studies by looking at the role humans play in being food. It encourages us to take a broader view of natural cycles by looking beyond life and death to imagine cycles of birth, life, death, decomposition and nourishment. Every life form feeds another life form; that is the way of Creation. This paper encourages people to think of food as sacrament, and of ourselves as part of a sacred ecology. What does it mean, then, to think of ourselves as food? What obligations does that impose on us to make sure that we are good eating? This essay suggests that eating organically grown food is important for many reasons, but not least because it respects this natural cycle. It does so through a discussion of Eve Balfour, otherwise known as the mother of organic farming. The importance of this topic is underlined by Balfour’s approach to saving the topsoil on which all civilizations depend. Balfour’s ideas on the crucial role of earthworms in soil preservation are examined, and it is suggested that we would do well to take these ideas to heart, and act.
{"title":"Becoming Food","authors":"Yvette Abrahams","doi":"10.1163/18757421-05401003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18757421-05401003","url":null,"abstract":"This paper takes a novel perspective on food studies by looking at the role humans play in being food. It encourages us to take a broader view of natural cycles by looking beyond life and death to imagine cycles of birth, life, death, decomposition and nourishment. Every life form feeds another life form; that is the way of Creation. This paper encourages people to think of food as sacrament, and of ourselves as part of a sacred ecology. What does it mean, then, to think of ourselves as food? What obligations does that impose on us to make sure that we are good eating? This essay suggests that eating organically grown food is important for many reasons, but not least because it respects this natural cycle. It does so through a discussion of Eve Balfour, otherwise known as the mother of organic farming. The importance of this topic is underlined by Balfour’s approach to saving the topsoil on which all civilizations depend. Balfour’s ideas on the crucial role of earthworms in soil preservation are examined, and it is suggested that we would do well to take these ideas to heart, and act.","PeriodicalId":35183,"journal":{"name":"Matatu","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139211309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-20DOI: 10.1163/18757421-bja00008
Maryam Yusuf Magaji, Ignatius Chukwumah, Yusuf Tsojon Ishaya
Abstract Although, from extant literature, Nigeria has been noted to have a considerable number of significant panegyrics, this variety seems to exclude the Jukun, an influential ethnic stock located in southern Taraba, along Nigeria’s northeastern corridor. This article describes Jukun panegyrics against their socio-cultural context. It uses Richard Bauman’s thought on performance as shared heritage peculiar to a people’s verbal art culture to describe how the performers of Jukun panegyrics establish linkages between themselves and their audience by heavily drawing on the lore peculiar and familiar to their audience and region to drive home their performative delivery. It is essential to draw on Bauman’s thought, given that it reveals how oral imagery invokes the lore and entire cosmology common to the Jukun. In conclusion, we find that although the Jukun panegyrics performer may display skills similar to other performers across the nation in establishing connections between the audience and himself, he greatly distinguishes himself through exhuming the lore of his audience and region and through the provision of insights into the historical, social and cultural factors that might have shaped the evolution and sustenance of the Jukun panegyric, thus enriching the reader’s understanding of the traditions and identity of the Jukun people.
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Pub Date : 2023-10-20DOI: 10.1163/18757421-bja00009
Anias Mutekwa
Abstract This article examines the representation of postcolonial marginalisation and adaptive/reactive models of masculinity in NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel, We Need New Names . It focuses on the representations of masculinities in the text and their ramifications and entanglements at the global, regional and local levels. The analysis is mediated via a triangulation of the concepts of hegemonic masculinity, masculine (over)compensation and masculine hybridisation. It establishes that a culture of both hegemony and domination mediates and permeates masculine relations resulting in the enactment of reactive and adaptive responses in the form of both masculine (over)compensation and masculine hybridisation. These responses are mainly enacted by those subaltern masculinities who are at the receiving end of domination and hegemony. Additionally, these responses favour the enhancement of male domination and/or patriarchy as opposed to gender equality. They also do not favour the promotion of a culture of tolerance, democracy and/or human rights discourses that are central to the realities of much of the contemporary world.
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