South Africa

Urban Transformation, African Migrants and the Informal Food System in Cape Town

This study will make a significant contribution to the growing literature on migration and food security nexus by focusing on the contribution of migrant women food vendors to the informal food system in Cape Town. In addition,  the study will provide new empirical and conceptual insights into the role of informal food vending in urban […]

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Pandemic Precarity, Crisis-Living, and Food Insecurity: Female Zimbabwean Migrants in South Africa

Sujata Ramachandran, Jonathan Crush, Godfrey Tawodzera & Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango  •  Our chapter examines the neglected connections between migration, gender, and food security in the context of the unfolding Covid-19 pandemic, using the case study of female-headed Zimbabwean migrant households in South Africa. We draw on the concept of “migrant pandemic precarity” to highlight the

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Food Resilience and Urban Gardener Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Can We Learn from the Experience of the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa?

This paper draws on the results of a mixed-methods study that investigates whether urban gardener networks in a low-income neighbourhood in Cape Town are contributing to urban agriculture and food resilience. The findings reveal that the urban gardeners are organised into largely fragmented informal networks whose primary goal is to enhance food resilience. While these

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Informal Cross-Border Traders and Food Trade during the Pandemic in Zimbabwe

The collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy in the 2000s resulted in the country relying largely on food imports from other countries, especially from South Africa. Informal cross-border traders have become crucial players in the country’s food economy, playing an important role in the importation of food as well as its retail across the country. Cross-border trading

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South-South Migration, Pandemic Precarity, and the Informal Food Sector in South Africa

The analysis of COVID-19 pandemic precarity in Africa should focus on the ways in which pre-pandemic migrant vulnerabilities were reconfigured in ways that weakened economic resiliency and reinforced disadvantage. This is the first paper to apply the concept of pandemic precarity to the impact of COVID-19 on migrants working in the informal food sector of

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Food Insecurity and Irregular Labour Migration from Northern Malawi to South Africa

The factors influencing migration decisions from Malawi to South Africa have changed with the end of contract migration to the mines and the new normal of irregular migration of both men and women to work in other sectors of the South African economy. Food insecurity is now one of the main drivers of migration as

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The Evolving Role of Social Media in Food Remitting: Evidence from Zimbabwean Migrants in Cape Town, South Africa

— PhD Thesis — In the global South, food remittances play a significant role in the food and nutrition security of many households, especially low-income families. However, in the last two decades, debates and research on migration, remittances, and development have primarily focused on cash transfers. Non-cash remittances such as food transfers have received limited

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IPaSS: Informality, Inclusive Growth and Food Security in Cities of the Global South

This foundation project of the Hungry Cities Partnership is funded by the SSHRC and IDRC under the International Partnerships for Sustainable Societies Program (IPaSS). The project has facilitated the formation of an initial seven-city research and policy network across the Global South linked to researchers at five Canadian universities. The project has embarked on a

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Consuming Urban Poverty (CUP) Project: Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa

The CUP project is funded by the UK DFID-ESRC Urban Poverty Programme and focuses on the relationship between urban poverty and secondary urbanization in Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe Africa as viewed through a food lens. The project is based at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, also a partner in

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