Speaking of Hunger: Food Shortages, Poverty and Community Assistance in Urban South Africa

ABSTRACT

How people speak of hunger extends beyond statements about food adequacy; people’s remarks may reflect experiences of poverty and feelings of vulnerability, and may be used to request help. In this article, we build on the idea of idioms of distress to conceptualize hunger talk as expressing more than an empty belly. We draw on ethnographic data gathered in two settings in South Africa: one a peri-urban area under traditional jurisdiction in the Eastern Cape Province; the other an inner-city suburb of the largest city, Johannesburg, in Gauteng. Hunger-related idioms of distress help illustrate the complex interplay of social, economic, and cultural factors, and allow people to speak of various affective and material aspects of their lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Food assistance
• hunger
• idioms of distress
• poverty

Acknowledgments

This article is an output of the project Ecological Community Engagements: Imagining Sustainability and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Urban South African Environments (Eco-Imagining) (PIs: Manderson, Moyer), funded by the Merian-National Research Foundation (South Africa) and NWO (Dutch Research Council, Netherlands).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the co-investigators, civil society partners, and others involved in the EcoImagining project funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), through the Merian Fund, and the National Research Foundation (South Africa) (Grant nos. 482.20.110, PI: E.M.Moyer; FWO210219587192, PI: L.Manderson). Lucy Khofi is supported by the National Research Foundation (South Africa) NRF, grant number: PMDS2205046544.