AP/SOSC 3541 3.00

Land, Food And Development In Africa And South Asia

This course explores the culture and political economy of food in Africa and South Asia, first in historical and comparative perspective, and second in the context of international development. The study of local and international struggles over land and resources focus the enquiry; changes in use and ownership rights, and in access to land and resources, are themes that run from the earliest farming and herding to the dilemmas of the 21st century. The course topics are supported by texts from history, anthropology, politics, and interdisciplinary studies on culture, environment, nutrition, development and gender, as well as African Studies and South Asian Studies. The course proceeds via eight topic areas: approaches to the study of food; food and nutrition in history; who eats what, and how? Class, gender, culture and religion; the purposes of land in human development; the privatization of land and the industrialization of food under colonialism and neocolonialism; the development enterprise; from Green Revolution to the Greenbelt Movement; issues of equity and development in the late 20th Century; and food, environment, and the struggle for rights at the millennium. Several themes unify our enquiry: human rights and equity; the gendered nature of land use, ownership and access; the individual commercialization of collective subsistence resources; the importance to development of indigenous knowledge; uses and abuses water, wood, soil and seeds; theories and practices of exploitation and resistance; food in the contexts of famine, poverty and plenty; the historic and development role of women in food production; the politics and ethics of field research; family nutrition; and the struggle for empowerment through local and global action.