Research Seminar in Cultural Anthropology with Elizabeth Hull about Food and the Politics of Provisioning in South Africa

Dr Elizabeth Hull from Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

This paper examines the intersection of food provisioning and political economy in South Africa, focusing on the key staple food of maize In rural KwaZulu Natal, escalating maize prices have become a site of political contestation The paper situates the contemporary crisis of maize affordability within a longer history of economic transformation, from the exploitation of mineworkers and the dismantling of peasant production during industrialisation to an economy of unemployment and cheap food underpinned by large scale agribusiness in the post apartheid period Drawing on long term ethnographic work and recent interviews in the wake of rapid price hikes, the paper traces how food provisioning shapes political subjectivities The analysis moves beyond a binary framing of South Africa’s economy as split between industrialized and subsistence spheres, instead revealing maize as a dynamic site where histories of labour state responsibility and communitarian values converge.

Dr Elizabeth Hull is a senior lecturer in anthropology at SOAS University of London, and chair of the SOAS Food Studies Centre She has been conducting ethnographic research in South Africa since 2006 Recent research focuses on food based livelihoods and how people are navigating recent disruptions to food systems caused by Covid 19 price hikes, floods and political instability Previously she has worked on nursing, healthcare and ideologies of professionalism She is author of Contingent Citizens Professional Aspiration in a South African Hospital (Routledge 2020). In 2024 2025 Dr Hull is Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study.