Professor Cheryl Mcewan cheryl.mcewan@durham.ac.uk
Professor
This paper addresses how food, tradition, and memories intersect with how sustainable food consumption is conceived, practiced, and mobilised. Using ethnographic research, the paper examines articulations and practices of ‘good food’ among food system actors and middle-class consumers in Johannesburg, South Africa. It argues that a nuanced and contextualised understanding of foodways and food consumption is required to capture the relationships between food cultures and consumption practices in African contexts, as well as to speculate on emerging pathways to sustainability during contemporary crises through conceptualising eating as an ethical act. After contextualising the research within South Africa’s contemporary food system and the historical legacies that continue to shape it, the paper argues that memory and tradition are central in consumer perceptions of good food. They also enable consumers to viscerally sense both pasts and futures in which they can gain control of their diets, health, and extract some independence from an industrial urban food system that they do not entirely trust. The paper explores the possibilities of combining consumer interest in traditional foods with increasing concern for the biodiversity of underutilised species, and the role of food activists and influencers to promote sustainable food consumption. The paper concludes that a growing interest in traditional foods is emerging at the confluence of fashionable, ‘ethical’ food trends which, if harnessed sensitively, has potential to promote more sustainable foodways.
McEwan, C., Dayab, S., & Hughes, A. (online). Food, memory, and changing framings of sustainable consumption in Johannesburg. Critical African Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2024.2445168
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Aug 3, 2024 |
Online Publication Date | Jan 13, 2025 |
Deposit Date | Oct 23, 2024 |
Publicly Available Date | Jan 16, 2025 |
Journal | Critical African Studies |
Print ISSN | 2168-1392 |
Electronic ISSN | 2040-7211 |
Publisher | Taylor and Francis Group |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2024.2445168 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2981371 |
Published Journal Article (Advance Online Version)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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