Abstract:
The overarching objective of this thesis is to determine causes of food insecurity in southern
Africa, and how it can best be addressed. This objective is addressed through a number of
research questions and methods at three geographic scales: the regional, through a technique
of meta-analysis which is used to synthesise 49 local-level household economy case studies;
the provincial, through a Delphi panel of practitioner experience; and the local, using multiple
research techniques, including participatory methods.
An extremely diverse range of factors contributing to food-insecurity are found at all three
scales, indicating that community- and household-specific dynamics give rise to forms of food
insecurity. Two common processes, however, are argued to be common across all the casestudy
communities in the regional-scale research. These are the closely related processes of
cycles of intensifying vulnerability associated with livelihood ‘trade-offs’, and of communitylevel
social capital changing into forms that undermine resilience to food insecurity - such as
the decline in two-parent families.
A further probing of social capital at the local level suggests that while social capital takes
multiple forms, and further remains in many respects a problematic concept, it nevertheless
provides a valuable lens through which powerful social dynamics might be examined in
developing responses to food insecurity. Policy makers and change agents should carefully
consider their role in building community social-capital that might enhance the ability of
vulnerable communities to overcome livelihood constraints and adapt to the tremendous
challenges posed by changing economic environments in southern Africa.
Drawing on the research at all scales, a framework is provided that calls for a reconceptualisation
of food-security interventions to focus on intervention processes, applicable
at all scales and in all contexts across the region. The development of social capital,
participation, co-ordination and learning interactions are explored as central elements in
these processes. The framework asks for closer attention to both the appropriate mechanisms
(such as policy) necessary to effect change, and the human dimensions that give these
mechanisms agency.
The findings of the thesis represent an additional shift in understanding food security to
acknowledge that the value of a political economic interpretation of food security is limited
independent of an understanding of the cross-scale social networks and relational interactions
that ultimately configure and reconfigure it.
