Black gay men’s status consumption of food as a construction of identities in South Africa: a literature review (2000-2020)

Presenter: Brian Sibeko

Available literature indicates that the desire to seek and signal one’s prestige and status in society is notable, especially for people who belong to or identify with a marginalised, stigmatised, or low-status group. Notably, these groups engage in status consumption to affirm and enhance their identity in society. This is especially the case for Black gay men who continue to be discriminated, marginalised, and oppressed in society. Predicted on the social identity theory, this study conducted a systematic literature review which was guided by the PRISM Framework to address the following research question: What is the nature of South African Black gay men’s status consumption of food in the context of identity construction? The inclusionary criteria of this study yielded 121 qualitative and quantitative studies which were conducted across the world between the year 2000 and 2020. The findings from the literature that was included in this systematic literature review affirm that gay men are status-conscious consumers who engage in status consumption to construct their identities. The literature also suggests that they engage in this consumption habit to build a positive social identity and consequently counter the homophobia they experience in society. However, these findings also indicate a need for more research that will explore this consumption habit in the context of food since existing studies on the status consumption of food focused on the general population without giving any attention to how gay men, particularly Black gay men, engage in the status consumption of food to construct and maintain their identities. Of the studies that focused on gay consumption, none has focused on food. Rather, their focus is on gay people’s status consumption of luxury products such as cars, leisure travel, branded clothing, and gadgets.
Narratives of Identity and Belonging: Place and the everyday food practices of immigrant, Muslim, women living in Fordsburg, Johannesburg

Safia Bobat

Food consumption practices and social identity construction in South African soapies: A semiotic remediation discourse analysis of Skeem Saam

Nokukhanya P. Ndlovu

Narratives of Identity and Belonging: Place and the everyday food practices of immigrant, Muslim, women living in Fordsburg, Johannesburg

Presenter: Safia Bobat

Food and food practices are used as a lens to access the narratives of identity constructed by Muslim, immigrant women living in Fordsburg, a space renowned for its many eating places and street food culture. Fordsburg, affectionately known as ‘Foodsburg’ to locals, has played host to many diverse communities in its history and has been visibly influenced by these communities. The reciprocal impact of person on place and place on person is highlighted through the purposeful selection of Fordsburg as a geographic site of enquiry. A series of interviews have been conducted and a number of photographs taken by participants of food and food shops in Fordsburg have been
collected. Some of this material will be presented in connection with the theme of eating and food buying practices in relation to identity-construction.

Food consumption practices and social identity construction in South African soapies: A semiotic remediation discourse analysis of Skeem Saam

Presenters: Nokukhanya P. Ndlovu

Soap operas are multifunctional resources, they serve as entertainment, representation of the society and somewhat educate the society. Through the soap operas the lived experiences of people are told, and the viewers are enlightened of the narratives of people. However, at the same time soap operas enhance or influence and somehow challenge the perspectives of the audience in relation to identity and identity performance. Storytelling involves telling or rather portraying the lived experiences of people. Furthermore, the soap operas are a representation of the society. In other words, lived experiences are reacted and repurposed and mirror the reality. Thus, this study focuses on Skeem Saam, a South African soap opera aiming to reveal the kind of food related semiotics that are compiled in recreating the social identities and life of the South African society and the implications of such performances to the broader society and food consumption practices. It will use the qualitative method for an interpretive analysis and aims to answer the research questions using the semiotic remediation discourse analysis as the theoretical framework.

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

Presenter: Charles Prempeh

In Luganda, there are certain linguistic expressions used in reference to food types but which metaphorically portray a woman as an edible entity. For example, the form mboona literally describes a healthy and yellow-ripe mango, but it has been semantically broadened to refer to a
girl or a (young) woman with a glow of beauty that is irresistibly attractive. Preliminary findings indicate that many of these expressions are gender sensitive, and as such, feminine forms such as mboona cannot be processed in reference to a boy (young) man with similar attributes. Using Luganda spoken conversations which were obtained from conversational interviews and focus group discussions in 2020, the study interrogates the gender-based relationship between food and body image. It analyses the pragmatics of a selected sample of food names and descriptions used in reference to women with the aim of unearthing their underlying inferential interpretations. In addition, the study attempts to explain the role of language in creating emotional awareness on the value of food and how this converts into people’s urge to preserve food and lessen the dangers of its extinction. The analysis will be informed by Sperber and Wilson’s (1995) relevance-theoretic
notion of inferential processing.

If Meat be the Food of Love, Play on: An Appraisal of the Assamese Movie ‘Aamis’

Presenter: Aparna Ajith

Cinema plays a quintessential role in the daily life of an ordinary human being. Film as a multi-dimensional medium, with great potential to inform and educate has extensive power to play with
a man’s psychology. Being the cultural artifact of human life, it has carved a niche of its own by depicting the eternal verities which are universal in nature. It has become the rich heritage of man and we see the recordation of the heartbeats of the entire human race in celluloid form. The paper endeavors to give a glimpse of the rare emotional connection over food between an unusual pair, separated by age and morality, through the movie ‘Aamis’ (Ravening) released in 2019. This Indian Assamese-language feature film by the national award-winning director, Bhaskar Hazarika narrates the story of a married paediatrician cum mother who develops an unusual bond with a younger Anthropology student doing Ph.D. in the meat-eating traditions of north-east India. The characters, Dr. Nirmali Saikia and Sumon Baruah meet quite accidentally and incidentally but their platonic love flourishes within no time for their insatiable appetite for meat. They are consumed by the love for food and they are united by their love for the forbidden. They have not even touched each other by mistake and all their conversations revolve in, around, and within the exuberances of food items
especially meat dishes. Their meat attachment goes beyond the definition of blind love and they share a piece of each other to connect to each other. ‘Aamis’ in the Assamese language alludes to meat and here, it acts as a metaphor for non-veg, sex, and lovemaking. Although Nirmali is a married woman and Sumon is a young research scholar, they go for the forbidden in the pool of
glowing love. The dreadful and bizarre turn in ‘Aamis’ makes one feel that all is fair in the love for food that transmutes all manmade entanglements.

Mass and Social Media, Food and Navigating “Being Black and Middle Class” in South Africa

Presenter: Pamella Gysman

One of the most visible aspects of democracy in South Africa is the black middle class. Its tastes and consumption patterns have been of long interest to both media and researchers; with prevailing perceptions portraying a vapid, shallow and materialist group obsessed with status. Based on a phenomenological exploration of black middle class’ negotiation of “self” and identity, insights into food and black middle-class identity making on television or in the print media are revealing, and such insights are even richer in social media. By discussing a variety of media communication, especially social media, this paper reflects on how members of the black middle-class have used food narratives and messages about taste culinary skill or food knowledge to craft empowering self-images in the face of deeply embedded racism in the South African culinary scape. By focusing on patterns such as “eating without food”, “the cultured palate” (my terms) as well as encoding and decoding, I draw attention to the complex ways in which black subjects navigate classed and racialised words. By developing what seem to be unremarkable performative
acts related to eating, preparing and displaying food. Black subjects create “selves” that reveal ingenuity and thoughtful knowledge about food, taste as well as the violent history underlying the evolution of South Africa’s food cultures.

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.

Good food in South Africa

Presenters: Shari Daya, Heeten Bhagat, and Molly Anderson

This exhibition presents the creative outputs from a 4-year research project exploring food consumption and ethics in South African cities. Through a poster, an interactive exhibition of postcards, and teatowels, we explore some of the intriguing and compelling ideas about food from residents of Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.

Indigenous knowledge for processing of local flora to Desert delicacy: Panchkutta

Presenters: Dheeraj Singh, M K Chaudhary, Chandan Kumar, & Aishwarya Dudi

Trans-generational knowledge transmission of food and food ingredients is inter-woven with regular maintenance of healthy life, cultural legacy, and religious concepts of the ethnicities of the land and have been the key to sustain a traditional food culture. Native communities of Thar Desert of western India have adopted a unique indigenous knowledge system for environmental conservation and sustainable management of these natural resources for food security. One of the best examples is Panchkutta (combination of five), a preparation of mixed fruits from four very common native trees/shrubs namelyKair (Capparis decidua), Kumat (Acacia senegal), Khejri (Prosopis cineraria), Lasora (Cardia Myxa) and an annual creeper Kachri (Cucumis callosus). As arid region has ample solar radiation for major part of year therefore, these five vegetables are primarily processed, open sun dried and then different proportion of these vegetables is mixed for Panchkutta preparation. Panchkutta is a readily available dish and source of all essential nutrients available in every village of southern Rajasthan.

It is a unique example of utilizing all available food resources with the aim of ensuring year-round nutritional security and making use of some of the ingredients which otherwise are non-palatable. It can be stored for a long time and consumed at any time of year. Apart from its role as food it has many medicinal properties like blood purification, digestive, antibiotic, antidiabetic and its consumption increase the resistance power of body. This unique processed product is storehouse of all essential components of food like proteins, carbohydrates, fibers, minerals and all essential nutrients. Owing to intense sunshine during most of the year, sun-drying of these commodities is very common. Promoting the Panchkutta not only enriches the indigenous food base but it is also needed for meeting the nutritional needs of the population and ensure the sustainability of soil and environment.

Repositioning strategies of fast-foodscapes during the Covid 19 pandemic: A multisemiotic discourse analysis of Nandos, KFC and Chicken Licken in South Africa

Presenter: Lynn Mafofo

Due to the corona virus pandemic, many businesses were affected. Just like any other countries in the world, South Africa has been on and off different levels of lockdown. foodscapes such as small retailers, supermarkets, fresh produce shops and hypermarkets were prioritised and remained opened with restricted times and implementation of the pandemic safety rules. However, the recreational centres and fast foodscapes are among the most affected businesses in South Africa. They have been asked to close their doors to the public several times and rely heavily on virtual marketing strategies and interactions with their consumers to avoid super spreading hot spots. Many stakeholders have been urging the government to reopen these outlets with restrictions. Upon opening under strict lockdown rules, the fast foodscapes have creatively embraced the interactional mass media, technologies and consumption strategies to market their food to their customers. Looking at consumption discourses of selected fast-foodscapes such as Nandos, KFC and Chicken Licken, this paper presents a multisemiotic discourse analysis to reveal how the foodscapes have been rebranding and repositioning themselves to the consumers in lockdown. It includes looking at the kinds of semiotic resources that are used to construct new discourses and meanings in selling food to the consumers in different South African domains. The paper further discusses the implication of such discourses on the repositioning of the foodscapes’ brands in relation to the South African context and consumers during lockdown.

Co-operation in action: CSA as a pathway towards localised food systems

Presenter: Nicola Coundourakis

This paper considers Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as a model for localising food systems, underpinned by co-operation. After contextualising CSA in the era of Covid-19 and other systemic shocks and establishing an argument for CSA as a tangible alternative to the agri-industrial food system, the author will consider a series of successful CSA case studies and conclude with some reflections on the applications of CSAs in a local setting.

Precarious contexts of foodwork: Urban Zimbabwean women at the frontline of political ecology struggles

Presenter: Michelle Masuku

In sub-Saharan Africa, there has been a significant increase in on- and off-plot, urban and peri-urban agricultural activities, as residents of urban areas have increasingly found it difficult to afford basic commodities and sustain an ‘urban lifestyle’. This rise in urban agriculture has also been evident in Zimbabwe. With women often being responsible for the distribution of food within a household, urban agriculture is mostly dominated by women. For women, urban agriculture has become a source of social and economic empowerment as it provides alternative employment,
complementary income, and a means to expand their food sources. However, informal agriculture in marginal urban spaces has constantly been seen as an unfavorable, ‘rural’ practice which negatively affects aspects of urban living such as the health of urban residents and the aesthetic of urban spaces. Many studies have focused on formal urban agriculture activities that make part of the dominant foodways discourses. However, very little has been written on alternative agricultural activities from the margins. Concentrating on three selected urban areas in Harare, the key purpose of this research is to analyze and discuss the contributions women make through agricultural activities and strategies thereof in marginal urban landscapes by the highlighting their agencies and unique characteristics. This includes looking at the challenges women face in such precarious foodwork contexts in Zimbabwe. The study will use qualitative research methods for data collection such as document analysis, semi structured individual and focus group interviews and participant observation. The study will adopt the feminist political ecology, standpoint feminist theory and indigenous knowledge systems as the theoretical framework to analyze the data. This study will contribute to bridging knowledge gaps regarding the sustainability, impact of, and contribution made by women-led marginal urban agriculture. Furthermore, this research will contribute to the body of knowledge that could be used in the reformulation of urban agricultural policies in Zimbabwe.