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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Cheryl McEwan, Professor Alexandra HughesORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
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, and to speculate on emerging pathways to sustainability during contemporary crises through eating as an ethical act. After contextualising the research within South Africa’s contemporary food system and the historical legacies that continue to shape this, the paper argues that memory and tradition are central in consumer perceptions of good food, enabling them to viscerally sense both pasts and futures in which they can gain control of their diets, health, and some independence from an industrial urban food system that they do not entirely trust. It 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.
Author(s): McEwan C, Daya S, Hughes A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Critical African Studies
Year: 2025
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 13/01/2025
Acceptance date: 03/08/2024
Date deposited: 09/08/2024
ISSN (print): 2168-1392
ISSN (electronic): 2040-7211
Publisher: Routledge
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2024.2445168
DOI: 10.1080/21681392.2024.2445168
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