Transforming South Africa’s unjust food system: an argument for decolonization

ABSTRACT

This conceptual article argues for the need to reframe approaches to the South African food crisis in terms of decolonizing the food system. The point of departure is that the South African food system produces starkly unequal access to nutritious food, negative health outcomes, environmental destruction and a breakdown in social relations. The harms of this system disproportionately affect the poor, Black people and women. The historical roots of this unjust food system lie in colonialism, capitalism and apartheid, yet this coloniality continues in its modern global industrial incarnation. The colonial, capitalist values underpinning the food system have been normalized and have become hegemonic. This leaves little space for imagining – or fighting for – more just alternatives. Yet the framework of decolonization has the potential to create such a space to begin to challenge the hegemony of the current (neo)colonial/capitalist food system and replace the profit motive with the values of reciprocity, collectivity and inter-connectedness that underpinned pre-colonial food systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Food justice
• food sovereignty
• coloniality
• indigenous knowledge systems
• indigenous food
• decolonization

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. For a more detailed discussion of the fieldwork with urban farmers, see Kesselman, Ngcoya and Casale (2021). For the work with urban consumers, see Kesselman (2022).

2. The term “communities of color” is generally used in the food justice literature from the United States to refer to nonwhite, minority populations such as African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic people and Native Americans. In South Africa, the term “Black” is often used to refer to all historically-marginalized groups, though these were broken down into Black, Colored and Indian under apartheid race laws.

3. The food poverty line is the amount of money that an individual would need to be able to purchase the minimum required daily calorie/energy intake to survive. This is also referred to as the “extreme” poverty line (Statistics South Africa 2022a).

Additional information

Funding

This work is based on the research supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number: 129571)

Notes on contributors

Brittany Kesselman

Brittany Kesselman is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Society, Work & Politics Institute (SWOP) at Wits University. Her current research investigates the impacts of colonialism on food and health, as well as the ongoing transmission of traditional and indigenous food knowledge. Other research interests include community food institutions, food justice, food sovereignty and urban agriculture.