https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8108-3511
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ABSTRACT
This paper illuminates how urban food producers contribute to the construction of food sovereignty in less-expected urban settings in the Global South. In South Africa, jobless de-agrarianisation, apartheid legacy, and rapid food price inflation are shaping the realities of marginalised urban inhabitants. Urban food movements have been critically observing these developments and have begun to raise their voices against social inequality. In this way, they offer a fertile ground to put food sovereignty into practice. While food sovereignty has become a globalised vision, it has been adapted in specific contexts to address issues ranging from the struggle against corporate power to self-determination in the agri-food system. Drawing on research conducted on an urban agriculture movement in George, Western Cape, this contribution provides a sketch of the way people propose alternative visions about the organisation of food and land grounded in everyday life.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Sarah Ruth Sippel, Nicolette Larder, Bridgit Fastrich, and the anonymous reviewers for their enriching comments, and Jun Borras for his ever-valuable guidance. Special thanks to those who provided their invaluable support in the field research in South Africa and to the movements that have inspired this work. Any errors and omissions are the author’s own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Anne Siebert is a PhD student in International Development Studies at the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE), Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, and at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. She is also a research fellow at the IEE. Her research focuses on global food policies, in particular urban food systems and reactions ‘from below’. Email: [email protected].
ORCID
Anne Siebert http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8108-3511
Notes
1 The name is Afrikaans, with ‘Kos’ meaning food and ‘en’ meaning and. Fynbos is a typical heathland vegetation in the Western Cape.
2 Apartheid refers to an era of white supremacy in the period of 1948 to 1991. South Africans were officially classified according to skin colour, history, and language.
3 In contrast, several governments have either explicitly or implicitly adopted food sovereignty into state policies (Schiavoni Citation2017, 2).
4 The movement is a member of LVC.
5 This movement operates under the Surplus People Project, is a member of LVC, and is active in the Western and Northern Cape.
6 SAFSC was founded in 2015 and ‘[…] emerges out of a need to unite organisations, social movements, small scale farmers, farmworkers and NGOs championing food sovereignty into a national platform […]’ (South African Food Sovereignty Campaign Citation2015).
7 This implies local, ecological, and small-scale production.
8 George Herald is the local newspaper.
9 Thusong Centres are service and information centres in townships.
10 The distribution of population groups is as follows: 50.41% coloured, 28.23% black, 19.69% white, 0.48% Indian/Asian, and 1.19% other.
11 The names of the interview partners have been kept confidential and pseudonyms are used.
12 Protea Park, Rosemore, and Le Vallia are in the city centre. Blanco and Pacaltsdorp were villages outside George. With growth of the city, both became part of George. Rosedale is a new governmental housing development at the fringes of Pacaltsdorp. Touwsranten is a community outside the centre of George. Thembalethu, a large township, is also located at the outskirts of the city. In South Africa, black people were forced to live in townships during the apartheid. Still today, townships are growing massively and often comprise informal settlements.
13 Spaces vary between 10 and 40 square feet.
14 Door gardens only comprise the size of a door.
15 Competitions are no longer part of KEF’s work. The cooperation with the municipality became rather weak in 2016.
16 People involved in KEF get a membership certificate with the creed.
17 KEF informs citizens about issues like the Bayer-Monsanto merger, land grabs in the countryside, long distance food trade, and the overuse of pesticides. These topics are a vital part of their discussions and information is shared via Facebook.