TY - JOUR
T1 - “Why Can't People Feed Themselves?”
T2 - Archaeology as Alternative Archive of Food Security in Banda, Ghana
AU - Logan, Amanda L.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding was provided by National Science Foundation grants to Ann B. Stahl (BCS 0751350, BCS 9410726, BCS 9911690) and myself (BCS 1041948), as well as a Wenner-Gren Foundation dissertation grant to the author (N013044). The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board and Banda Traditional Council granted permissions for all research reported. I owe special thanks to members of the Banda community for answering my questions and exposing me to new ones; and to Ann Stahl for access to Banda's rich history and for assiduously collecting archaeobotanical samples long before an archaeobotanist took interest. Many colleagues have provided thoughtful commentary on the arguments presented, including James Brown, Catherine D'Andrea, Kate Franklin, Mark Hauser, Michelle Hegmon, Ian Hodder, Matthew Johnson, Fiona Marshall, Scott MacEachern, François Richard, Cynthia Robin, Melissa Rosenzweig, David Schoenbrun, Carla Sinopoli, Katherine Spielmann, Ann Stahl, Noelle Sullivan, Barb Voss, and Mary Weismantel. Chelsie Yount-Andre translated the abstract into French. Last, I thank Michael Chibnik and seven anonymous reviewers whose constructive criticisms improved the clarity of the argument. The first part of the title references Frances Lappé’s well-known 1972 speech and later article (Lappé and Collins).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 by the American Anthropological Association
PY - 2016/9/1
Y1 - 2016/9/1
N2 - Today, food insecurity is associated with both severe climatic shifts and pervasive poverty. What is less well understood is how the problem of hunger came to take its present-day form, especially in the African continent, where the highest prevalence of undernourishment is found. In this article, I propose that archaeology can be used as an alternative archive of food security. Material remains provide a from-the-hearth-up view of changing foodways and political economy and can be used to trace the shape of processes that led to modern-day patterns of food insecurity. Combining archaeobotanical, ethnoarchaeological, and environmental data, I provide a case study that shows how food insecurity was avoided during a centuries-long drought in Banda, Ghana, and emerged only much later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, as market economies and colonial rule took hold. I suggest that archaeology is essential for making such processes of “slow violence” visible, particularly in areas that lack rich historical archives. [Africa, food security, Ghana, archaeobotany, slow violence].
AB - Today, food insecurity is associated with both severe climatic shifts and pervasive poverty. What is less well understood is how the problem of hunger came to take its present-day form, especially in the African continent, where the highest prevalence of undernourishment is found. In this article, I propose that archaeology can be used as an alternative archive of food security. Material remains provide a from-the-hearth-up view of changing foodways and political economy and can be used to trace the shape of processes that led to modern-day patterns of food insecurity. Combining archaeobotanical, ethnoarchaeological, and environmental data, I provide a case study that shows how food insecurity was avoided during a centuries-long drought in Banda, Ghana, and emerged only much later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, as market economies and colonial rule took hold. I suggest that archaeology is essential for making such processes of “slow violence” visible, particularly in areas that lack rich historical archives. [Africa, food security, Ghana, archaeobotany, slow violence].
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U2 - 10.1111/aman.12603
DO - 10.1111/aman.12603
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84983607570
SN - 0002-7294
VL - 118
SP - 508
EP - 524
JO - American Anthropologist
JF - American Anthropologist
IS - 3
ER -
