Focused on Pemba Island in Zanzibar, this paper examines how talk about food – in abundance and plenty as well as drought, and hardship – can yield important insights into people’s experiences of the past and present. While food, in a very basic way, is central to human survival, people’s experiences of acquiring, preparing, sharing, and consuming food are central aspects of human social and cultural life. When talking about food, human beings deploy culturally specific knowledge that locates them in history and in society. Food discourse deploys culturally inflected visions of wellness and social harmony, as well as of hardship and fragmentation. This paper explores food discourse in Pemba as oral history that sheds light on how people experienced the 1920s and 1930s, World War II and rationing, the Zanzibar Revolution and the famine of 1972, as well as how changes in food preparation figure in people’s assessments of their own well-being, and experiences of contemporary times. The paper also argues that the Pemban concept of shibe, or ‘satiety’, may provide a culturally viable framework for thinking about as well as implementing social and environmental wellbeing on a larger scale.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:32892 |
| Date | 31 January 2019 |
| Creators | Arnold Koenings, Nathalie |
| Contributors | Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 1614-2373, urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa2-328795, qucosa:32879 |
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