A food sovereignty insight into land, gender and justice in provincial agri-food governance: lessons from nongovernmental organisations in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Year: 2022
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The author argues that food insufficiency and gender inequity are conjunctive social ills \nwhich require concomitant analysis and intervention. To assist, food sovereignty offers a \nviable heuristic mechanism to critique such a range of injustices associated with present \nfood systems. However, despite the efforts of its promulgators, researchers regard food \nsovereignty’s nexus with gender dynamics as precarious. Given the extent to which \nagrarian social structures remain bastions of gender inequity, the shortcoming is likely to \ncompromise food sovereignty’s transformative potential. Moreover, in acknowledging the \nconcomitant feminisation of agriculture and deprivation, any failures in public and third \nsector strategy have most profound repercussions for smallholder women. Consequently, \nthe author proposes an intersectional framework of feminist food sovereignty to centralise \nsmallholder women in governance and development praxes. The framework considers a \nlayered food systems approach which highlights the sociological dynamics surrounding \nintrahousehold food production, processing and consumption. In formulating this \nframework, the research undertook a qualitative analysis of third sector insights into food \nsovereignty and gender equity in rural KwaZulu-Natal. These findings furthered the \nconceptual link between food sovereignty and gender in context. Furthermore, to test the \nviability of such a framework as an apparatus of critique, analysis of relevant governance \narrangements was undertaken. The feminist food sovereignty insight was imbricated \nwithin an existing diagnostic framework to engender holistic critique of food systems \ngovernance arrangements. Ultimately, the researcher offers multiple recommendations to \nconsolidate governance and development praxes for the dual benefit of gender equity and \nfood sufficiency.
Author: Kinnear, Finn Alexander Hartwell.
Language: English
Subfield: Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7056932158