• The cultural politics of food in South Africa
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The cultural politics of food in South Africa

£85.00
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This book explores the cultural politics of food in the South African context, bringing together a range of disciplinary perspectives on the links between media, nourishment, and inequality. It cri...
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  • 17 March 2026
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Food is both a material system of nourishment, necessary for human survival, and a communicative system that signifies multiple meanings across human cultures. This book explores the cultural politics of food in the South African context, bringing together a range of disciplinary perspectives on the links between media, nourishment, and inequality. The chapters all highlight the multiplicity of meanings that food has in South African society. These include historical perspectives on the impact of colonialism, migration and apartheid had on food and foodways in South Africa; sociological interventions on food and society; aesthetic practices in relation to food; and mediated food cultures in South Africa. Taken together, the book critically explores the multiple ways in which food is never just food, and always linked to complex and shifting modalities of meaning and knowledge in the South African context.
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Price: £85.00
Pages: 240
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Publication Date: 17 March 2026
ISBN: 9781526184740
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:

Cultural studies: food and society, Cultural and media studies
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I’m struck by the variety of historical and social experiences, representations and scientific and quotidian knowledge-making yielded when food is used as a lens in scholarship. This book straddles disciplines that are usually separated to provide an overview of how food both shapes and is shaped by interpersonal, psycho-social, socio-political and historical dynamics in South Africa. It courageously acknowledges and respects a very wide range of disciplinary and theoretical approaches to food in South Africa. — Professor Desiree Lewis, University of the Western Cape

Mehita Iqani is Professor of Media and Communication in the Journalism Department and SARCHi Science Communication Chairholder at Stellenbosch University
Sarah Gibson is Associate Professor in the Centre for Communication and Media in Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal

Introduction: Never just food: An introduction to nourishment, inequality and media in South Africa
Sarah Gibson and Mehita Iqani
Part I: Historical and social perspectives
1 Towards a decolonised food system in South Africa: Lessons from Indigenous food systems
Brittany Kesselman
2 The women’s claim to uMqombothi from the Durban System
Russel Hlongwane and Tammy Langtry
3 ‘A square meal’: Food systems, security and anxiety in Southern and Central Africa through the eyes, and mouths, of missionaries, 1880–1910
Amy Rommelspacher
4 The right to eat: How black migrants in South Africa accessed food during the COVID-19 pandemic
mpho ndaba
5 Grounded, together, loved: Food and community in the temporary micro-utopia of Afrika Burn
Mehita Iqani
Part II: Aesthetic and media practices
6 Gardens of simple delights: Consuming food, consuming pleasure
Rebecca Pointer and Darlene Miller
7 Eating well: Culinary capital and the South African high-foodie scene
Wamuwi Mbao
8 Recipes for the rainbow nation: Community and commensality in the 7de Laan televisual fan cookbooks
Sarah Gibson
9 You are what you feed: Lunchbox spectaculars in middle class South Africa
Maya Loon
10 Never just Father’s Day: Food, masculinities, and fatherhood in South African advertising
Carla Tsampiras
11 The cultural politics of veganism on South African Instagram
Tanja Bosch and Liani Maasdorp
Index