How we talk about Talk about food

Presenter: Desiree Lewis

At a critical food studies symposium almost a decade ago, I discussed the need for “discursive space-clearing” as we struggle to find new critical frameworks, registers and lexicons to explore “food” in human and socio-cultural life. This need may be even more urgent in 2021, in the context of the public health and resource panic that Covid-19 has generated. Today, the tyranny of so-called neo-Green Revolution practice and rhetoric is entrenching – in unprecedented way – a global neo-liberal monopolizing of the world’s food resources and systems as well as the ways in
which we imagine human relationships to food. Food sovereignty and justice movements as well as radical political economy continue to challenge corporate global food systems. Yet the cognitive worlds in which these are rooted have become increasingly naturalized and omnipresent. This presentation seeks to explore and deconstruct the ways in which food discourses in the public domain have been “captured” by neo-liberal capitalist and commodity culture. I focus on three important spheres: how food discourses normalize inequalities and binaries among humans and between the human and the non-human; the normalising of “productivist” models of food production; and the ubiquity of tropes and images of “excess” in popularized ways of imagining human beings’ desirable relationships to food.

Ethical Practices that enhance Food Security among African Communities

Presenter: Simon Masiga

Through poetry, story and image, I explore some of my heritage foods and the ways in which their recipes reside and shift beyond ‘words on a page’. By its very definition, the word recipe implies a formula and while their textual and published form offer multiple readings, defining the recipe as
simply a set of instructions in a published bound book (depending on who is telling the story) can concretise the ways in which the replication of food is conceptualised. Published recipes are just as much a form of knowledge production as any, allowing those in power to appropriate, exoticise, reduce and take ownership of the food narratives of more marginalised communities. Rethinking forms of recipe transmission beyond a mainstream published form disrupts and allows for complex understandings of the ways in which heritage recipes change and adapt while remembering the unwritten.

The venison appeal: Exploring the cultural politics of game meat in South Africa

Presenters: Shirley brooks, lindokuhle khumalo, melanie sommerville, & Tariro Kamuti

Eve gave into the temptation by biting into the “forbidden fruit”- her act of disobedience then, her transgression can be ascribed to the act of eating. An affinity exists between the gastronomical and the sexual, an affinity that exists in continuity and recalls a long standing tradition within Western culture and literature of associating women with food.

Consuming food eschews no neutrality. Anthropologist Mary Douglas in her essay, “Deciphering a Meal” treats food as a code, and writes, “if food is treated as a code, the message it encodes will be found in the patterns of social relations being expressed. The message is about different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across the boundaries. Like sex, talking of food has a social as well as a biological component.” Woman was food because breast milk was the human being’s first nourishment – the one food essential for survival. Moreover, both God and women were food insofar as they were bodies. God, like woman, fed his children from his own body. Social arrangements and cultural symbols stereotyped reception of nurture as a male activity, and provision of nurture as a female one. Moreover, this close affinity between divinity and women allowed men to control and regulate the sexuality of womenby keeping them within a spiritual, sanitized domain.

My paper is grounded in the exploration of the presence of the female bodies and their relation to food- their act of consuming and being consumed by the patriarchal order (justified in the garb of religiosity), by taking into consideration some texts like “The Goblin Market”, “Jane Eyre”, “The Duchess of Malfi” etc amongst others.

Food and Gender Relations in a Muslim inner-city in Accra, Ghana since the 1980s

Presenter: Charles Prempeh

The goal of this paper is to analyse the cultural eating patterns and values, health beliefs, and nutritional practices and how Muslims review their dietary practices in a Muslim inner-city of Maamobi, Accra-Ghana. The paper assumes that food is particularly essential in forging complex social ties. This function of food is framed around the fact that food is not just a substance that is eaten for its nutritional values, but a culturally nuanced substance that speaks deeply embedded socio-cultural and political issues. Thus, focusing on some common diets, meal patterns, special occasions for the consumption of some meals, the role of food in society, and the therapeutic uses of food, the paper sheds light on how the food cultures of Maamobi shape gender relations in the community. The paper will pay particular attention to how men and women, including those who are married, deploy food as a tool for communication to negotiate their identity, press home their needs, and express conjugal love. More importantly, I will explore how women in particular use food to circumvent patriarchal beliefs and practices around food. Finally, my paper will discuss how women use food to stage their presence and participate in the performance of religious rituals. In all this, deploying the tools of ethnographic research techniques of in-depth interviews with residents in the community and theories of food pathways, my paper will contribute to the growing
literature on food cultures in Africa and across the world.

Rastafari Foodways and Identity-construction in Zimbabwe

Presenter: Fortune Sibanda

The cultivation, preparation and consumption of food are useful in creating identity claims. What we eat, how we eat, when we eat, and with whom we eat varies across group, spatial and temporal dimensions. This paper focuses on Rastafari Ital (vital) foodways and the necessity of detoxification
of African bodies. By mainly using the Nyahbinghi Rastafari communities in Zimbabwe, it is argued that Rastafari Ital foodways are ‘edible identities’ that are organic, healthy and nourishing for humanity pertaining to their cultivation, preparation and consumption.

The research established that Rastafari regard the use of GMOs as foods that are widely considered to constitute toxic waste and “Babylon” products, which threaten the purity of African bodies and African identity. The study was informed by the Afrocentric theory. The study concludes that Rastafarians are guided by the philosophy which says that ‘you are what you eat’ and they have used it to chant down the use of GMO foods that impact heavily not only on the African bodies, but also nature-friendly ideals and food sovereignty in postcolonial Zimbabwe.

“To consume, or be consumed”: an enquiry into sexual/textual politics of food and women

Presenter: Sonakshi Srivastava

Eve gave into the temptation by biting into the “forbidden fruit”- her act of disobedience then, her transgression can be ascribed to the act of eating. An affinity exists between the gastronomical and the sexual, an affinity that exists in continuity and recalls a long standing tradition within Western culture and literature of associating women with food.

Consuming food eschews no neutrality. Anthropologist Mary Douglas in her essay, “Deciphering a Meal” treats food as a code, and writes, “if food is treated as a code, the message it encodes will be found in the patterns of social relations being expressed. The message is about different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across the boundaries. Like sex, talking of food has a social as well as a biological component.” Woman was food because breast milk was the human being’s first nourishment – the one food essential for survival. Moreover, both God and women were food insofar as they were bodies. God, like woman, fed his children from his own body. Social arrangements and cultural symbols stereotyped reception of nurture as a male activity, and provision of nurture as a female one. Moreover, this close affinity between divinity and women allowed men to control and regulate the sexuality of women by keeping them within a spiritual, sanitized domain.

My paper is grounded in the exploration of the presence of the female bodies and their relation to food- their act of consuming and being consumed by the patriarchal order (justified in the garb of religiosity), by taking into consideration some texts like “The Goblin Market”, “Jane Eyre”, “The Duchess of Malfi” etc amongst others.

Promoting eco-feminism in food security research during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights from a co-research collaboration in Cape Town, South Africa

Presenters: Haidee Swanby, Nicole Paganini, Nomonde Buthelezi, & Sanelisiwe Nyaba

This paper reports on the process of co-research on household food security during the pandemic, selected findings from marginalized communities in four neighborhoods of the Cape Flats, and reflections on the co-research process from the perspectives of co-researchers, the project coordinator, and the project funder. Community members from the Cape Flats and five postgraduate students from a Berlin-based institute conceptualized this study and it was steered by community researchers and project partners. Because of the participatory approach employed during the research process (co-research), this paper highlights important aspects of the methodology, particularly joint contextualization and sense making of findings led by community researchers who placed results in the context of their lived experiences.

Household food insecurity is significantly shaped by intersectionality; the consequences of this intersectionality affect the roles women play in the food system. During contextualization of results, study team members created three visions for a post-COVID-19 scenario, one of which is discussed in detail in this paper: de-stigmatisation of hunger through political discourse, especially involving women.

The influence of indigenous food practices on children’s developmental outcomes: A participatory exploration with caregivers in a rural community in KwaZulu Nata

Presenter: Ayanda Tshazi

Childhood malnutrition has been found to lead to negative health and developmental outcomes for affected children, including both physical and cognitive development. Government and society rely on cultural values to influence nurturing behaviours from those who control resources within the home for children to benefit. Indigenous knowledge thus becomes useful for both governments and communities seeking to address systemic child hunger in communities. Indigenous food cultures determine children’s access to food within the home. To understand how families view and address children’s nutrition needs, it is important to examine food practices in the home. Thus, this study sought to understand cultural food practices and their role in determining nutrition outcomes of children in impoverished rural communities in KwaZulu-Natal. The main aim is to investigate how parents and caregivers understand the influence of food practices on children’s developmental and health outcomes and how their understanding influence decision-making regarding food for children in the home.

The study used participatory visual methods to explore questions concerning existing food practices in their homes, food knowledges they impart to children; how these influence wellbeing and ways to improve practices for better outcomes for their grandchildren and themselves. Preliminary findings reveal the dualities within the women’s perceptions of themselves as young children and the children of today as well as anxieties regarding the fast-paced changes in lifestyles and food practices heralded by modernity and their waning influence as grandmothers. Persistent sexualization of foods as pertaining to girls and young women results in their constant policing from pre-pubescence onwards and related to concerns about the disproportionate burden of poverty on women. The study undoubtedly contributes to discussions on the dynamic indigenous food knowledge and practices, identity integration and modernity which will be further discussed in this paper.

The slow violence of child malnutrition: Gauging progress / a process of engagement

Presenter: Lori Lake

The South African Child Gauge is published by the Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town and provides an annual review of the status of South Africa’s children to inform evidence-based policy and programmes. The 2020 issue draws attention to the slow violence of child malnutrition and identifies critical points for intervention across the life course in order to address the double burden of nutrition, and enhance children’s health, education and employment prospects. While readers tend to focus on the book as a product, this presentation reflects on the Gauge as a process of engagement – from the initial roundtable through to the high-profile launch, media strategy and a series of policy dialogues – that has enabled us to interrogate children’s food and nutrition security from an interdisciplinary and intersectoral perspective; forge new insights and partnerships;
refresh, reframe and reenergise national dialogue and debate; and position children at the heart of the food system. The presentation raises questions about how to ensure research findings on food and children that transcend the disciplinary boundaries and the confines of the academy to actively
intervene in public debates and policy making.

Understanding food-related health behaviour: an ethnographic study investigating the management of non-communicable diseases through the use of food by residents of Langa, Cape Town

Presenter: Zonke Khanyi Mjekula

South Africa has reported an alarming high prevalence of non-communicable diseases over the years, and the Western Cape is one of the provinces reporting the highest mortality rate from non-communicable diseases. A significant number of studies have, however, indicated that low-income communities are disproportionately affected by this. In this paper I employ a specific focus on nutrition as a trigger for the development of NCDs. In this paper I aim to understand how people living with non-communicable diseases, in the predominantly low-income township of Langa make choices with regards to their food consumption, in light of their health. The aim is to understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ to certain nutrition decisions and preferences. I will be conducting an ethnographic study in which I will make use of interviews, participant observation and observations as my research methods.

Breastfeeding as a form of foodwork: Considering work-family, race, gender and class

Presenters: Gabe Vermeulen & Safiyya Goga

This paper (presentation?) discusses the use of a so-called ‘farm bank’ by workers on a Limpopo citrus farm to leverage power. Farm bank is a financial initiative started by the owner but controlled by the employees that provides loans. Conceptually it can be understood as a bridge between the formal managerial structures of the farm, and the traditional paternalistic structures found. The paper illustrates how specific workers use farm bank to exercise power over others who might have less social capital in the paternalistic structures but more in the formal structures. This leveraging of monetary capital illustrates new strategies of survival and control in a context where two distinct logics of power and influence are competing. The findings of the paper are based on data collected during fieldwork for an MA dissertation and are based on observation and semi-structured interviews conducted in 2021.

The vanilla Bubble of 2003/4: How Neo-Liberal Policy Changed The Production of the World’s Favourite Flavour

Presenters: Julian May & Myriam Velia

Vanilla is one of the most widely used flavourings in food production accounting for a world trade of $500 million. Vanillin, the chemical that gives the cured vanilla bean its characteristic taste and aroma, is flavour in its own right and used as a flavour enhancer for many processed foods,
including in the multi-billion dollar trade in sugary beverages. Traditionally, natural vanilla has beena crop grown by small producers in some of the most under-developed regions of the world which becomes an ingredient in iconic commodities such as ice cream, Coca Cola and expensive perfume.

Although an inexpensive synthetic alternative can be readily substituted for natural vanilla, the latter continues to play an important role in the $16 billion per annum flavours and fragrances industry. The market for natural vanilla is subject to price shocks with sudden price increases followed by long episodes of low prices. In the boom of 2002-04, prices for cured vanilla beans rose from $21/kg in 1997 to an alleged $600/kg in late 2003 and early 2004, before plummeting to $25/kg in 2006. As with other tropical agricultural commodities, trade liberalisation policies, economic integration and industry restructuring played a role in these fluctuations, while the consequences were felt in countries as diverse as Uganda, Papua New Guinea, and Tahiti. After providing an overview of the vanilla trade, the paper analyses the causes and consequences of the vanilla bubble of 2003/4.

Disparity to Parity to Solidarity: How Agrarian Movements Resist Corporate Capture in the “Capitalocene”

Presenters: Daljit Soni, Garrett Graddy-Lovelace, Veronica Limeberry, & Indra Shekhar Singh

The pandemic reminded us that we share not only the air we breathe but also a food system ripe for structural transformation. Global supply breakdowns illuminated crises of food production and access, showing that an honest discussion of our food system requires critical analysis of racial
agro-capitalism, from slavery and colonization onward. These systems are tied to assumptions of an “anthropocene,” coined by geologists to mark the onset of ecological destruction caused by the overbroad category of “humanity.” The Anthropocene is inherently racialized and mandates deeper
analysis that probes the past and the present of colonial capitalism. Dominant food discourses benefit from an accurate history of modern property ownership, the development of agricultural empire and its contribution to the current climate crisis. This article will illustrate how the postcolonial ecocidal “green revolution” led to a global crisis of overproduction, crop dumping and subsidy inequities. The related musical contributions amplify the stories of international alliance building within the Indian Farmers Revolution. Whether it is supply management policies or the legalization of a minimum support price, the voices of agrarian resistance are fundamental.

Pioneering advocates such as La Via Campesina and the Disparity to Parity coalition are examples of organizing to combat the ills of conventional agriculture. We elucidate the expansive nature of racial agro-capitalism through today’s corporate capture of global governance in Africa and how this threatens food sovereignty. We raise similar questions about disempowerment in the planning and implementation of the U.N. Food Systems Summit. Through exploring the “Capitalocene” as a response to the Anthropocene concept, this article proposes a path rooted in the cosmovisions of
Indigenous and African diaspora communities, and those leading agrarian resistance. Burgeoning social movements in multiple parts of the world have regenerative potential to inspire a transitional antidote from the Anthropocene to the Agroecocene.

A Culinary Biography of Dora Sithole: Identity, Heritage, Memory and Flavours

Presenters: Vasu Reddy & Lebo Moletsane

As the first black food writer, Dora Sithole is an iconic figure in the South (African) culinary
landscape. A pioneer in popularizing tradition and contemporary African cooking and cuisine for
over four decades (and at the risk of essentializing her), she stands out as a notable figure in South
African culinary history pre-apartheid and beyond. A celebrated food writer, magazine editor (Drum
& True Love), food stylist, recipe developer and a trained Cordon Bleu chef, she was born on 24
September 1953 in Soweto and died on 3 January 2020.
Beyond several co-authored books, her notable cookbooks are Recipes with a Touch of Africa
(1994), Cape to Cairo, a Taste of Africa (1999) which was followed by its sequel Cooking from Cape
to Cairo (2009). In the year of her death, Dora Sithole: 40 Years of Iconic Food was published to
critical acclaim, a text providing a glimpse into her life through food.
Sithole was also to a large extent a food influencer. By the latter we mean that she was immensely
influential in taking food and meals enjoyed by working and middle-class Black households, and
she elevated and celebrated it by showcasing it on the various platforms available to her. “When
people spoke of South African food, it was never really food eaten in Black or township homes. We
would hear about bobotie, melktert and koeksisters, but there was never any morogo or amabele,”
Sithole says, referring to the curried mince dish, milk tart and sugary plaits that were given
preference over wild spinach and sorghum.
If food illuminates broad societal processes such as political-economic value-creation, symbolic
value-creation, and the social construction of memory, we motivate that in Sithole’s culinary work
the focus also falls on the senses as gustemology (the cultural issues surrounding food) via
recourse to heritage, memory and flavours. In this presentation, using Sithole’s cookbooks (and
recipes), we present a descriptive and analytical exposition of her life as a legendary culinary figure
in South Africa and by so doing, analyse the kind of pan-African foodways she developed.

The South African milk tart: Beyond indigenization

Presenter: Rachel Botes

Questions of identity, belonging and heritage arise at the intersection of food and history. Food shapes time and place, facilitates social interaction and reveals aspects of gender, culture and other everyday practices. Likewise, South Africa’s fragmented and chequered history is reflected in our diverse attitudes towards food. As an artefact of food culture, the South African milk tart (melktert) points toward many of these intangible attributes as it developed over centuries. It was indigenized to become part of our everyday life and grew into a symbol for identity, memory and communication. In a thematic analysis this paper investigates these unseen components as symbolic attributions of the milk tart that surpass food’s purpose of nourishment and, in so doing, transcend the recipe and the physical artefact. It considers factors that are vital components of food culture that ultimately contribute to social, cultural and ritual activity in people’s lives. These associations manifest strongly in the latter half of the twentieth and in the twenty-first century as metaphoric connotations with aspects that include political affairs, the narratives presented by, or about, individuals and the collective associations with, and accounts of, communities

Food, symbolism, political change, and gendered identities in Zimbabwean Politics: From Mama Grace’s ice cream to Amai Mnangagwa’s traditional meals

Presenter: Tinashe Mawere

This work provokes deeper inquiries into the centrality of food, food substances, food and the
spectacular, and ways of and the sub-texts of promoting, serving and consuming food, as well as
the ways of imagining food in Zimbabwean politics and nation-building. Globally, food has become
an increasingly contested site for (re)thinking about power, imagi/nations, re/distribution, access,
and agency. In Zimbabwe, as elsewhere, food has been associated with the metaphoric and
symbolic, going beyond its physical presence, distribution, and consumption. This work focuses on
the symbolic, cultural, and political significance of the ice cream served by ‘Mama’ Grace Mugabe,
(Zimbabwe’s former First Lady) during rallies and the traditional dishes being promoted by
Zimbabwe’s current First Lady, ‘Amai’ Auxillia Mnangagwa. The acceptances and rejections of the
ice cream, and Mama’s love, care, visibility, and naturalized role in the nation was a call for ‘new
dishes’ and graphically reflected the emergent factions within Zanu-PF and also helped to widen
them. To this extent, food, and specifically, the ice cream, acted as an agent of change leading to
the ‘new dispensation’ led by Emmerson Mnangagwa. In the ‘new dispensation’, food (traditional
dishes) is being promoted by Amai Mnangagwa in narratives and performatives not only of
(m)otherhood, but also that invoke national identities, healthy bodies and at the same time
consolidating Mnangagwa’s rule. The traditional dishes speak to the restoration of national
identities and healthy bodies, appropriating the military coup’s, ‘Operation restore order’ that ended
Robert Mugabe’s ‘poisonous’ rule and brought in Emmerson Mnangagwa as president. My analysis
is informed by post-colonial feminist scholars and critical food studies that see food as discourse.
I employ critical discourse analysis to demonstrate how food as metaphor and symbol, has sprung
as an agent and vehicle of political imaginations, national imaginations, and gendered identities as
well as their (re)production.

I miss my mum’s cooking: Migration and Black British cultures

Presenter: Michael McMillan

Across the African diaspora food cultures and identities have emerged through histories of colonialism, imperialism and migration, such as okra, rice, breadfruit, saltfish and cornmeal.

Delicious dishes are also made from meat and fish parts that were castaway during the enslavement of Africans, such as pigtail, pigtrotters, cow foot, cow skin, tripe, chicken neck to mention a few. How and where these food ingredients are Us, contemporary art from the Caribbean, group show. KAdE, Kunsthal, Amersfoort sourced, and how they are cooked and eaten carry symbolic capital around cultural knowledge, taste, pleasure, affect and identity formation. Conventionally, in preparing parties across the African Caribbean diaspora, for example, music comes first, followed by hot food, and drink, and there some dishes that are de rigueur. However, growing up Black in Britain, did not and does not mean there is a homogenous response to Caribbean cuisine, which is as much to do with exposure, choice and identification.

Self-reflexively, I miss my Mum more than her cooking now, because I cook when she did and more, but in my own style, because it embodies pleasure and love. I also love eating with my hands, and will suck meat and fish bone in public, but this tends to ignite social stigmas about fine dining practices, and what Black bodies should and should not do in the public space, such as our natural hair. Throwbacks to Victorian values of respectability and civilising the Black bodies, these legacies of colonialism that still haunt our everyday lives. These tropes also circulate in hegemonic food discourses in the ways that Caribbean food is repackaged as cuisine and how Caribbean chefs are represented in popular culture.

Serious Fun: Food for Thought

Presenters: Rike Sitas & Gareth Haysom

Drawing on an urban research experiment and collaboration between food researchers at the African Centre for Cities, and arts organisation, dala, this paper explores the role of artful games in urban food security research. Food for Thought developed out of a desire to explore creative ways
of engaging food security in a context struggling with food insecurity. Using arts and humanitiesbased research, the purpose of the experiment was to engage different constituencies in an interactive way to unpack the food system in unequal societies, in this case Cape Town. What the game enabled was a mirror, reflecting the nuances of the food system in a real and almost immediate way that more traditional forms of research may be less able to do.

The paper starts firstly, by introducing arts and humanities-based research, particularly providing a background on serious games arguing that they provide less risky spaces for intellectual exploration (Abt, 1970) and civic engagement (Philippi & College, 2014). Secondly, it provides a theoretical and contextual background to food security, particularly in Cape Town (Battersby, 2011). Thirdly, the paper introduces the Food for Thought experiment, reflecting on how the game revealed how a public and interactive experiment revealed dietary diversity discounting, the emotive choice, the preference for certain traditional foods, the inequality within the food system, the fact that the system was a great deal more than just the food on display. Finally, the paper reflects on the role of creative research tactics in urban studies, arguing that artful games render the political dimensions of decision-making immediately visible in different ways to other forms of research (Pinder, 2005; Sitas, 2020; Sitas & Pieterse, 2013).