Cultivating selves
A farmer profile of Fakazile Mthethwa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12330392 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mvuselelo Ngcoya (0000-0002-7601-7488, corresponding author), Narendran Kumarakulasingam |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 17-24 |
| Publication date | 2016-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Agenda (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1013-0950 • E-ISSN: 2158-978X |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10130950.2017.1293904 |
| OpenAlex | W2599253895 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
This is a story of one farmer, Fakazile Mthethwa (also known as Gogo Qho).11 We are grateful to Ms Fakazile Mthethwa for opening her home and work to us to do this work. We are also indebted to the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal for generous research support. This paper complements two other articles published in 2016 in the Journal of Agrarian Change and also in Contexto Internacional. Smanga Mkhwanazi, Mohammed Khan, Nokuthula Ngubane and Menzi Bhengu offered excellent research assistance. We have followed her singular story intensely for four years, learning about her attempts to use indigenous plants to cultivate her autonomy from the dominant food industry in the small town of Mtubatuba in northern KwaZulu-Natal. She relies mostly on her own indigenous vegetables for her sustenance. Hemmed in by the corporate food industry, scorned by neighbours, ridiculed by traditional authorities, finding little succour from her family, Gogo Qho continues to carve spaces of food sovereignty (McMichael, 2015 McMichael P (2015) ‘A comment on Henry Bernstein’s way with peasants, and food sovereignty’, in Journal of Peasant Studies, 42, 1, 193–204. doi: 10.1080/03066150.2014.936853[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; La Via Campesina, 2013) by growing imifino (leafy green indigenous vegetables). By engaging in her work, we ask how her attempts to cultivate these vegetables, to cultivate indigeneity as it were, differ from those of the State and other actors. What does it say about the system of food production when a woman – an unmarried 65-year-old pensioner and grandmother – takes it upon herself to surreptitiously challenge the dominant food regime (Friedman, 2009)?In this profile of her work we use the concept of entanglements (Li, 2007 Li T (2007) ‘Practices of assemblage and community forest management’, Economy and Society, 36, 2, 263–293. doi: 10.1080/03085140701254308[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to view her imifino as an abbreviation of social relations, connected to the production and reproduction of social life in Mtubatuba and ultimately to the political economy of food in South Africa. We use photographs and interviews to probe the impact of a strong patriarchal order in Mtubatuba, family life, traditional authority, and the State and the dominant corporate food industry on her work
Agrarian society · Agriculture · Autonomy · Commodification · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Food security · Food sovereignty · Indigenous · Peasant · Political science · Sociology · State (computer science · Sustenance · Agricultural Innovations and Practices · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Gender Studies · History · Innovation and Socioeconomic Development · Law
| Highly cited | No |
|---|