Seeking the Right to Food
Food Activism in South Africa

Exploring why South Africans rarely use activism to address food insecurity, this study proposes ways to reclaim the power of collective action.

Bright Nkrumah (Author)

9781316519790, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 August 2021

256 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 1.6 cm, 0.48 kg

Despite a constitutional right to food, a comprehensive social security structure, being a net exporter of agricultural products and maintaining a rising GDP, freedom from hunger remains a pipedream for millions of South Africans. With a constant surge in food prices, the availability of sustenance is often seriously threatened for all of South Africa's population. While the underprivileged majority residing in townships often demonstrate their discontent for poor service delivery on the streets, they rarely channel this strategy into taming food inflation. This study seeks to understand this irony and examine ways in which this trend could be reversed. Proposing a compelling argument for food activism, Bright Nkrumah suggests ways of mobilising disempowered groups to reclaim this inherent right. Presented alongside historical and contemporary case studies to illustrate the dynamics of collective action and food security in South Africa, he draws from legal, social and political theory to make the case for 'activism' as a force for alleviating food insecurity.

1. Food activism and policy in South Africa
2. A tale of food activism
3. The case of Right to Food Campaign
4. Rocking the boat? Mobilising for food security in South Africa
5. Food (in)security and legal implications in South Africa
6. The unfinished agenda: perspectives on South Africa's food (in)security
7. Dispossession: reforming land in South Africa
8. Ethical obligation to assist impoverished South Africans
9. What is to be done: overcoming policy fragmentation in South Africa
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Demonstrations & protest movements [JPWF], Pressure groups & lobbying [JPWD], Political activism [JPW], Social theory [JHBA], Poverty & unemployment [JFFA], Food & society [JFCV]