This book analyses the interplay of urban agriculture and food sovereignty through the innovative lens of the "critical urban food perspective". It focuses on the mobilisation of urban food producers as a powerful response to highly exclusionary dynamics in the agri-food system including insufficient food access and disastrous land dispossessions.
This volume particularly aims to fill the gap in the current literature by engaging with food sovereignty discourses and movements in urban areas. Related activism of urban food producers in the Global South remains underrepresented in practice and in literature. Therefore, this book engages with the lived realities of an urban agriculture initiative in George, South Africa. Building on theoretical notions of the "right to the city" and "everyday forms of resistance", the book illuminates how deprived food producers expose inequalities and propose alternatives. The findings of in-depth empirical research reveal that dwellers perceive farming as a mean to overcome historical segregation, high food prices, and unhealthy nutrition. Hence, they breathe life into food sovereignty in practice and suggest further alliances beyond the city.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students of alternative food politics, agrarian transformation, and food movements as well as rural-urban intersections.
Author(s): Anne Siebert
Series: Critical Food Studies
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 173
City: London
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Why food sovereignty in the city matters now
Confronting the dominant agri-food system
Urban agriculture, exclusion, and calls for food sovereignty
Analytical framework: critical urban food perspective
Research approach
Overview of the book
Notes
References
Chapter 2: Rethinking South Africa’s agri-food system: Notions of food sovereignty and urban agriculture
South Africa’s commercialised agri-food system
Food sovereignty in discourse: roots, actors, and challenges
Initial challenges
Incipient attempts towards food sovereignty
Further endeavours and urban issues
Notions of urban agriculture and introduction of the case study
Kos en Fynbos
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
Chapter 3: Exposing marginalisation: Food and farming in the city
Initial mobilisation
Socio-economic backgrounds
Different types of urban agriculture and microhistories
Blanco
Pacaltsdorp
Thembalethu
Organisation and cooperation
Garden Route Botanical Garden
George Herald
George Municipality – Local Economic Development Unit
Landmark Foundation
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, George Campus, Saasveld
Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) in the Eden region
Further actors: “moral supporters” and other donors
Critical reflection of the prevailing nutrition landscape
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
Chapter 4: Proposing food sovereignty
Local access to nutritious food
Valuing food providers
Farmer Support and Development Unit
Local Economic Development Unit
Unemployment and market access: the role of the informal sector
Access to land
Community knowledge and skills
Biodiversity and connection to nature
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
Chapter 5: Politicising alternatives from below
Uncovering political dimensions and rights to the city
Growing food sovereignty across the rural–urban divide
Creating changes within and beyond the existing system
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
Chapter 6: Conclusions: Urban South Africa and beyond
Critical urban food perspective
Lived realities of food producers at the urban margins
Political dimensions and food producers’ agency
Trajectories of food sovereignty and alliances
References
Index
