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An Ethnography of Hunger
Politics, Subsistence, and the Unpredictable Grace of the Sun
Kristin Phillips (Author)
9780253038364
Hardback, published 29 August 2018
242 pages, 8 color illus., 19 b&w illus., 1 map - 8 Halftones, color - 20 Illustrations, black and white
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.608 kg
The book is ethnographically rich and presents us with new ways of thinking about development practices and environmental politics broadly defined. More importantly, An Ethnography of Hunger makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the relationship between power, politics and the environment. The book, for many years to come, will provoke intellectual debate about the place of politics and the environment in Tanzania, Africa, and beyond. Recommended. Phillips's nuanced analysis of the lived experience of hunger, its embeddedness in social relationships, and its impact on political subjectivity are truly original and set this book apart from other anthropological studies of hunger, subsistence farming, or political subjectivity.
In An Ethnography of Hunger Kristin D. Phillips examines how rural farmers in central Tanzania negotiate the interconnected projects of subsistence, politics, and rural development. Writing against stereotypical Western media images of spectacular famine in Africa, she examines how people live with—rather than die from—hunger. Through tracing the seasonal cycles of drought, plenty, and suffering and the political cycles of elections, development, and state extraction, Phillips studies hunger as a pattern of relationships and practices that organizes access to food and profoundly shapes agrarian lives and livelihoods. Amid extreme inequality and unpredictability, rural people pursue subsistence by alternating between—and sometimes combining—rights and reciprocity, a political form that she calls "subsistence citizenship." Phillips argues that studying subsistence is essential to understanding the persistence of global poverty, how people vote, and why development projects succeed or fail.
Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Subsistence Citizenship PART I: The Frames of Subsistence in Singida: Cosmology, Ethnography, History Chapter 1 Hunger in Relief: Village Life and Livelihood Chapter 2 The Unpredictable Grace of the Sun: Cosmology, Conquest, and the Politics of Subsistence PART II: The Power of the Poor on the Threshold of Subsistence Chapter 3 We Shall Meet at the Pot of Ugali: Sociality, Differentiation, and Diversion in the Distribution of Food Chapter 4 Crying, Denying, and Surviving Rural Hunger PART III: Subsistence Citizenship Chapter 5 Subsistence versus Development Chapter 6 Patronage, Rights, and the Idioms of Rural Citizenship Conclusion: The Seasons of Subsistence and Citizenship Notes Bibliography Index