Maize and the politics of provisioning in South Africa
Maize and the politics of provisioning in South Africa
Dr Elizabeth Hull
Date: Thursday 4 June, 16:00
Location: Oxford Martin School seminar room 1 and online
Join us for the final seminar of the term with Dr Elizabeth Hull, from SOAS, University of London.
Title: Maize and the politics of provisioning in South Africa
Abstract: In rural South Africa, rising maize prices have contributed to growing hunger and political tensions. In Jozini, where maize is a staple food, the phrase isisu asikweletwa ('the stomach cannot be owed') captures the embodied experience of crisis and the limits of debt-mediated survival in a financialised food system. Drawing on long-term ethnographic work and recent interviews in the wake of price hikes, the paper explores how maize has become a focus of contestation over access to food. It argues that conceptualising food provisioning as a political field shaped by conflicts, obligations and claims, helps rethink the boundaries between every day politics and form politics in a context of weakening democracy.
Dr Elizabeth Hull is a senior lecturer in anthropology at SOAS University of London, and chair of the SOAS Food Studies Centre. She has been conducting ethnographic research in South Africa since 2006. Recent research focuses on food-based livelihoods and how people are navigating recent disruptions to food systems caused by Covid-19, price hikes, floods and political instability. Previously she has worked on nursing, healthcare and ideologies of professionalism. She is author of Contingent Citizens: Professional Aspiration in a South African Hospital (Routledge 2020).
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