We Are Not Starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana (African History and Culture)

Rock, Joeva Sean

ISBN 10: 1611864321 / ISBN 13: 9781611864328

Published by Michigan State University Press, 2022

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 401470526

Bibliographic Details

• Title: We Are Not Starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana (African History and Culture)
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1611864321
• ISBN 13: 9781611864328
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This critical text is a timely ethnography of how global powers, local resistance, and capital flows are shaping contemporary African foodways. Ghana was one of the first countries targeted by a group of US donors and agribusiness corporations that funded an ambitious plan to develop genetically modified (GM) crops for African farmers. The collective believed that GM crops would help farmers increase their yields and help spark a “new” Green Revolution on the continent. Soon after the project began in Ghana, a nationwide food sovereignty movement emerged in opposition to GM crops. Today, in spite of impressive efforts and investments by proponents, only two GM crops remain in the pipeline. Why, after years of preparation, millions of dollars of funding, and multiple policy reforms, did these megaprojects effectively come to a halt? One of the first ethnographies to take on the question of GM crops in the African context, We Are Not Starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana blends archival analysis, interviews, and participant observation with Ghanaian scientists, farmers, activists, and officials. Ultimately the text aims to illuminate why GM crops have animated the country and to highlight how their introduction has opened an opportunity to air grievances about the systematic de-valuing and exploitation of African land, labor, and knowledge that have been centuries in the making.

About the Author

JOEVA SEAN ROCK is an assistant professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University.