Video Content
Panel Discussions
Epidemic shocks and food cultures in the new millennium
27 May 2020
In the new millennium, global capitalism, racism, heteropatriarchy and xenophobia powerfully shape “disease” and “health”, as well as food practices and discourses. In this panel discussion, three critical thinkers reflect on connections between discourse and practices around food and health epidemics with the aim of opening up public debate.
International Symposium on Food Studies
The Meanings of Cooking in public life
23 July 2016
The Meanings of Cooking in public life (visual presentation). International Symposium on Food Studies. Held at University of Pretoria.
Drama students presentation at UP
23 July 2016
Drama Presentation. International Symposium on Food Studies. Held at University of Pretoria.
Food, pleasure and poison in Cape Town, a response to World Food Day
19th October 2019
If you were unable to join us on the 19th October 2019 at the Magnet Theatre in Cape Town, you can watch the panel discussion below.
Practicing global eco-feminism
31 July 2017
How can we move away from extraction and towards manifesting eco-conscious politics? Two eco-feminists, one from South Africa, the other Mauritius, share a chat under a tree, about Marx, feminism and life on the planet. Excerpt from the Laura Flanders Show, 31 July 2017
Professor Desiree Lewis, who heads up the Food Politics and Cultures Project explains the role of humanities research in food issues
Transdisciplinary research is key to understanding the complex dynamics of food insecurity, nutrition and hunger. Researchers are exploring human relationships to food, the power dynamics around food production and access and the meanings that food acquires in particular cultural and social contexts.
Donna Andrews –
The Futures of Food Panel Discussion
Donna Andrews, a feminist intellectual activist working with the Food Politics and Cultures Team
Virtual Seminars
Virtual Seminar 3:
Centering African Feminism in Food Cultures and Politics
27 July 2021
Although African women are centrally involved in the preparation, production and struggles around food, activist and academic domains rarely acknowledge their centrality as knowledge producers in food struggles, agroecology and critical food literacy. In this panel discussion, four feminists who are pivotally involved in food struggles address key social, cultural, environmental and nutritional concerns from the perspective of radical African-centred feminist perspectives. The themes discussed are: 1. Current food systems, neo-imperialism and African women and feminism 2. Who are the experts? Omissions in “alternative” and “radical” politics and knowledges 3. Connecting “theory”/”knowledge-making” and practice in food work 4. Food “crises” in relation to gender, race, neo-imperialism and the Anthropocene 5. Re-imaging human encounters with food from African feminist perspectives.
Virtual Seminar 4:
Embracing Contemporarity
29 September 2021
Women’s and Gender Studies Department and South African Association of Gender Studies presents a discussion on the context of the so-called “decolonial turn” and the frequently mechanical embrace of “political correctness”, what are the legacies and possibilities for radical feminist imagining. Themes explored include:
Virtual Seminar 1:
Corporate fast food advertising targeting children
29 June 2021
This seminar raises the way that a transnational corporate advertising industry, working in conjunction with the global food system, ruthlessly exploits children’s imaginative needs. By analysing advertising texts, it focuses on how persuasively global food marketing works. It also explores the abuse of the democratic principle of the “rights of the child” when advertisers manipulate children’s capacity to “choose” unhealthy fastfood.
Virtual Seminar 2:
In Search of the Perfect Curry in Two Contemporary South African Cook Books
25 May 2021
This seminar raises the way that a transnational corporate advertising industry, working in conjunction with the global food system, ruthlessly exploits children’s imaginative needs. By analysing advertising texts, it focuses on how persuasively global food marketing works. It also explores the abuse of the democratic principle of the “rights of the child” when advertisers manipulate children’s capacity to “choose” unhealthy fastfood.