OUR TEAM
Prof. Desiree Lewis
Principal Researcher
University of the Western Cape
Prof Desiree Lewis : Principal Researcher
Desiree Lewis is a professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of the Western Cape, and the lead Principal Researcher of the Mellon-funded intra-university “Critical Food Studies Programme”. She has taught at the Universities of Cape Town, the University of Kwazulu-Natal and the University of the Witwatersand. She has been a visiting professor and guest researcher at sites including the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town (Visiting Professor in 2018 and 2019) , Ruhr University, Germany (Marie Jahoda Visiting Professor in 2017), the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Scholarship (Research Fellow), the University of Georgia State (Fulbright scholar-in-residence in Women’s and Gender Studies and Literature Departments) and the Nordic African Institute Uppsala, Sweden (guest researcher).
A transdisciplinary feminist academic, Lewis studied at the University of Cape Town, Witwatersrand University and the University of York. Her research interests have included literary and cultural studies, the politics of feminisms, work on gender and sexualities, and, most recently, humanities-oriented food studies. She is the author of Bessie Head and the Politics of Imagining(2007) and has guest edited special journal issues dealing with feminisms, representations of the body, and sexuality and commodity culture.
Her recent work seeks to explore and expand the diversity of knowledge-making about human and social experiences through relationships to food. She is also interested in understandings of food and the human that are embedded in visuality, memory, oral history, popular culture and indigenous knowledges.
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Prof. Vasu Reddy
Principal Researcher
University of Pretoria
Prof Vasu Reddy : Principal Researcher
Vasu Reddy is Professor of Sociology and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria. Beyond his primary focus that addresses questions about gender diversity, sexualities, public health and equality of which he has published extensively, recent publications also address social and humanistic questions such as The Fabric of Dissent:Public Intellectuals in South Africa (lead editor, 2020), Ethics, Politics, Inequalities: New Directions (co-edited, 2021) and University on the Border: Crisis of Authority and precarity (co-edited, 2021). He recently also co-edited with Desiree Lewis a themed edition of the journal, Gender Questions (2021) focused on critical food studies.
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Prof. Relebohile Moletsane
Principal Researcher
University of KwaZulu Natal
Prof Relebohile Moletsane : Principal Researcher
Relebohile (Lebo) Moletsane is a Full Professor and the JL Dube Chair in Rural Education in the School of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. As part of her Chair in rural education, she has worked in South African rural schools and communities, focusing on teacher development around such issues as poverty alleviation, gender inequality and HIV prevention as barriers to education and development. Moletsane has extensive experience in participatory visual methods (PVM) in research and development. Furthermore, she has led and been actively involved in multi-disciplinary research on HIV&AIDS, including HIV&AIDS-related stigma, GBV and sexual and reproductive health and right and girlhood studies. As recognition for her work on addressing poverty in rural communities, Moletsane was the 2012 winner of the Distinguished Women in Science (Humanities) Award presented by the National Department of Science and Technology. She was a 2014 Echidna Global Scholar at Brookings Institutions’ Centre for Universal Education, where she completed a research report: The Need for Quality Sexual and Reproductive Health Education to Address Barriers to Girls’ Educational Outcomes in South Africa. Washington, DC: Centre for Universal Education, The Brookings Institution.
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Dr. Lynn Mafofo
Emerging Researcher
University of the Western Cape
Dr Lynn Mafofo : Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Lynn Mafofo’s research broadly engages with issues of food branding, advertising, positioning, and consumption in the formal and informal sector particularly in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Looking at the background of both the global and local food systems where food seems to acquire collective meaning through being imagined, symbolized and ritualized, she is interested in exploring, how the massive corporatization of food in the global world and food centered discursive strategies seem to embody ideological elements that resonate with particular socially accepted ideas, feelings or desires of offshore economies at the expense of local economies thereby subjecting unhealthy food consumption. This includes exploring how the literal or visual representation and positioning of food and cuisine divulge diverse historical, political, raced and gendered subjective identities and world views, in the context of food sovereignty as a radical alternative to neoliberal perspective to food security in the global south.
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Dr Sheetal Bhoola
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of KwaZulu Natal
Dr Sheetal Bhoola: Postdoctoral
Dr. Sheetal Bhoola completed her PhD in Anthropology which focused on Culinary Tourism, the anthropology of food and sociology. Her Masters degree in Sociology and Globalisation was attained internationally and was conferred by three institutions, namely University of Albert Ludwigs, Freiburg Germany, Jawarlal Nehru University, New Delhi & The University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has been the recipient of a number of academic bursaries and has been engaging in scholarly work in three areas; tourism, the anthropology of food and the South African Indian Diaspora. Her recent work has been focussed on the value of marketing local Cuisine of KwaZulu-Natal internationally, and halaal Tourism in KwaZulu- Natal. In addition, her other research includes studies on the migration of brides within the Indian Diaspora and immigrant communities in South Africa.
This research lends itself to the contextualisation of food and cultural identity, social markers and understanding social and anthropological meanings within popular culture.
These studies have contributed to the development of interdisciplinary research in relation to food and all its inter-dependent areas of study within Humanities. Sheetal has presented her research on numerous occasions at both international and local conferences and teaches at The University of KwaZulu-Natal.
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Thembi Bongwana
PhD Candidate
University of the Western Cape
Thembie Bongwana : PhD Candidate
Thembelihle Bongwana is currently doing her PhD at the Women and Gender Studies Department, University of the Western Cape. The doctoral research is titled “Public Eating, Food Spaces and Social Identities in South Africa’s Spur Family Restaurant. Bongwana’s interests are mainly around teaching and learning and as such, has tutored 3rd-year modules at the WGS department. Her interests around food were sparked by a Mellon-Funded food politics and cultures project, located within the University of the Western Cape’s Centre of Excellence (CoE) where she serves as an emergent scholar/researcher. Some of her research interests are around masculinities, gender and development, gendered power dynamics, public eating spaces, gender and science, and as such, her MA research focused on women in science and more recently food studies.
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Pralini Naidoo
PhD Candidate
University of the Western Cape
Pralini Naidoo: PhD Candidate
Pralini Naidoo is a PhD candidate in her third year of study at the University of the Western Cape (Dept. of Women and Gender). Her work is focused on tracing narratives of women who have descended from indenture in South Africa, and their complex relationship with (food) seed. As an activist, poet, mother and eternal student, Pralini remains passionate about the intersections of the social, political and the creative. Pralini has written environmental thought pieces, poetry and academic articles in various publications, including the African Journal for Gender and Religion and the Greentimes.
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Felicia Manka
Masters student
University of Pretoria
Felicia Manka
Title: Conjuring up memory: cooking, food and art.
We all have powerful recollections of being cooked for, the act of kindness and love is still within our minds which is incredibly powerful. The supper is this great human institution, where we learn to cook as well as became completely human. On the other hand, I feel we’ve lost sight of how that dinner ended up on our plates. The lack of documentation of indigenous cuisine in South Africa is slowly disappearing. Indigenous people possess a wealth of knowledge and experience that are significant resources in the sustainable development of society, says Patrick Ngulube (2014:3). There are hardly any records on traditional foods cooked or recipes. Litsomo (folk stories) were told by grandmothers to grandchildren in the evening as they sat around the fire (Mohale 2020). These stories directed young children to educate them in the ways of the world via a cultural lens. Great warriors and battles had songs of honour describing the battle scene and the incidents that unfolded as a recording process. Each clan would declare its own praises that spoke of their origin (Mohale 2020). The study aims to investigate how traditional food, visual art and digital archives such as, video and installation can possibly serve to prevent the erasure of indigenous knowledge of family histories or traditions. Furthermore, it seeks to preserve my family’s food heritage for generations to come, as I do worry that the memories (of my grandmother) are slowly fading, and I fear losing them, as they are the only thing that still connect us to her. Therefore, I argue that erasure or rather forgetfulness could be a threat to indigenous knowledge more especially to family history and traditions. Hence, the study aims to seek the possible solutions in documenting this knowledge through the vehicles of traditional food, visual art and the archive specifically digital archives.
We all have powerful recollections of being cooked for, the act of kindness and love is still within our minds which is incredibly powerful. The supper is this great human institution, where we learn to cook as well as became completely human. On the other hand, I feel we’ve lost sight of how that dinner ended up on our plates. The lack of documentation of indigenous cuisine in South Africa is slowly disappearing. Indigenous people possess a wealth of knowledge and experience that are significant resources in the sustainable development of society, says Patrick Ngulube (2014:3). There are hardly any records on traditional foods cooked or recipes. Litsomo (folk stories) were told by grandmothers to grandchildren in the evening as they sat around the fire (Mohale 2020). These stories directed young children to educate them in the ways of the world via a cultural lens. Great warriors and battles had songs of honour describing the battle scene and the incidents that unfolded as a recording process. Each clan would declare its own praises that spoke of their origin (Mohale 2020). The study aims to investigate how traditional food, visual art and digital archives such as, video and installation can possibly serve to prevent the erasure of indigenous knowledge of family histories or traditions. Furthermore, it seeks to preserve my family’s food heritage for generations to come, as I do worry that the memories (of my grandmother) are slowly fading, and I fear losing them, as they are the only thing that still connect us to her. Therefore, I argue that erasure or rather forgetfulness could be a threat to indigenous knowledge more especially to family history and traditions. Hence, the study aims to seek the possible solutions in documenting this knowledge through the vehicles of traditional food, visual art and the archive specifically digital archives.
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Pamella Gysman
Masters Student
University of the Western Cape
Pamella Gysman : Masters Student
Pamella Gysman is a Masters candidate in the Women and Gender Studies Department at the University of the Western Cape. Her background studies centred around philosophy, politics and economics. Pamella’s current research interests are food and identity. Her Masters research undertakes to investigate urban blacks’ food consumption choices and practices as well the relationship between their identity formation and these consumption choices and practices.
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Austin Pinkerton
Masters Student
University of Pretoria
Austin Pinkerton
BIO:
Austin Pinkerton is a CFS Mellon funded Master of Political Science candidate at the University of Pretoria. He is a Medtronic Bakken Fellow, and has worked in advocacy for people living with non-communicable diseases in Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa. His research interest centres on non-communicable disease, food and nutrition, and obesity policy in South Africa. The title of his MA dissertation is: Policy and its effect on the Foodways of the Poor: Understanding what diabetic women living in poverty eat and why.
Brief Abstract:
Policy and its effect on the Foodways of the Poor: Understanding what diabetic women living in poverty eat and why.
Each year more South African women die from complications associated with diabetes mellitus type 2 than any other medical condition. This condition is both treatable and preventable because a key cause of this condition is an unhealthy lifestyle thanks to poor food choices and inactivity, which eventually leads to obesity. Obesity is measured based on the Body Mass Index (BMI) and, alarmingly, the readings for South African women are increasing faster than their male counterparts. Recent studies found that it is precisely the poor nutritional standards that women, particularly those living below the median income threshold, have to choose from that predisposes them (and their potential offspring) to obesity and diabetes mellitus. For poor households, food is the biggest expense, accounting for 40% of their per annum income, while the wealthiest group in South Africa spend a mere 5% of their annual earnings on food. Stats SA (2020) explained this phenomenon, stating that low-income households have smaller food baskets, meaning they rely on cheap calories as “survival foods”. To understand this predicament, this research questions the role the grain industry plays in driving the narrative around policies focused on healthy and nutritious food, obesity, and non-communicable diseases. Using narrative strategies, this research takes a policy-centred approach to assess the extent to which the grain industry and government in South Africa create the basis of an obesogenic environment that predisposes poor women to developing type 2 diabetes.
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Gabe Vermeulen
Masters Student
University of Pretoria
Gabe Vermeulen
Abstract: Although agriculture makes a significant contribution to the South African economy, farm workers are some of the least protected labourers in the country. As South Africa has integrated into the global agricultural economy farm workers have been inserted into a larger (global) power structure. The study looks at Malapeng citrus farm in Mookgopong, Limpopo and asks: How can we read the lived experiences of South African farmworkers on a citrus farm in Limpopo within the broader field of agricultural food production (national and global) through which their lives and struggles are articulated? The study uses various methods that fall under a political ethnography to answer the research question.
Bio: Gabe is a Masters student in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Pretoria. Her research focuses on farm workers and how their lives are shaped by the global agricultural economy. Her broader interests are in food systems and food system governance.
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Thando Mthimkulu
Honours Student
University of Pretoria
Thando Mthimkulu : Honours Student
Thando Mthimkulu is currently a Honours student in Heritage and Cultural Tourism at the University of Pretoria.
His research focuses on South Africa’s food culture and food identity within the tourism domain. It considers what exists and how this has developed over time. He also explores ways of using
indigenous foods and food cultures to better promote SA’s food tourism industry.
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Ammaarah Seboa
Honours Student
University of the Western Cape
Ammaarah Seboa: Honours student
My name is Ammaarah Seboa, and I recently graduated with a BA in English, Linguistics and Psychology. Currently I am studying towards my Honours in Linguistics. My research interest lies in the understanding of branding semiotics and consumption experiences of halaal foods in Cape Town, with a focus on the challenges that the modern Muslim would face.
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Kea Mosetlhe
Honours Student
University of Pretoria
Kea Mosethle
Bio:
Keamogetswe Mosetlhe is an Honours student at the University of Pretoria studying Political Science. Keamogetswe has a great interest in history and politics. These two subjects aid in viewing and understanding the varied perspectives which people hold in the world. In her Honours year, she is currently researching the Afrikaner perspective on farming and how Afrikaner nationalism has evolved in modern-day South Africa.
Abstract:
Land, farming, and community are some of the prevalent parts of human beings due to the connections formed through land and one another. Agriculture forms a significant part of the economy, but race and food politics need to be assessed. The need to assess the Afrikaner farming community comes from the long history of the Boers and Afrikaner patriotism. With race and ethnicity playing a role in society, this study plans to understand their view in the agribusiness sector. With land expropriation without compensation and other race fuelled debates, their stance is heard, and this paper analyses it. Being Afrikaner has an underlying pride due to the history, practices, and resilience of the ethnicity. This study will focus mainly on what it means to be part of the Afrikaner farming community and connections to land and farming in modern-day South Africa. A critical literature review will be used in the research paper to focus and explain past research trends and advance an individual’s knowledge and understanding of the topic. The critical discourse analysis methodology will be used as its assessment of literature, language, and visual communication will aid in understanding the topic at hand. Journal articles, books and episodes of nature, agriculture and business television show Megaboere, which airs on kykNET on MultiChoice’sMultiChoice’s DStv channel 144, will be used.
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