Food Riots, Food Rights and the Politics of Provisions

Food Riots, Food Rights and the Politics of Provisions Thousands of people in dozens of countries took to the streets when world food prices spiked in 2008 and 2011. What does the persistence of popular mobilization around food tell us about the politics of subsistence in an era of integrated food markets and universal human rights? This book interrogates this period of historical rupture in the global system of subsistence, getting behind the head- lines and inside the politics of food for people on low incomes. The half decade of 2007–2012 was a period of intensely volatile food prices as well as unusual levels of popular mobilization, including protests and riots. Detailed case studies are included here from Bangladesh, Cameroon, India, Kenya and Mozambique. The case studies illustrate that political cultures and ways of organizing around food share much across geography and history, indicat- ing common characteristics of the popular politics of provisions under capitalism. However, all politics are ultimately local, and it is demonstrated how the historic fallout of a subsistence crisis depends ultimately on how the actors and institu- tions articulate, negotiate and reassert their specific claims within the peculiari- ties of each policy. A key conclusion of the book is that the politics of provisions remain essen- tial to the right to food and that they involve unruliness. In other words, food riots work. The book explains how and why they continue to do so even in the globalized food system of the 21st century. Food riots signal a state unable to meet a principal condition of its social contract, and create powerful pressure on a state to address that most fundamental of failings. Naomi Hossain is a political sociologist at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. Her most recent book is The Aid Lab: Under- standing Bangladesh’s Unexpected Success (Oxford University Press, 2017). Patta Scott-Villiers is a political sociologist and convenes the Power and Popular Politics Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. She is lead author of Precarious Lives: Food Work and Care after the Global Food Crisis (Institute of Development Studies, 2016). Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment For further details please visit the series page on the Routledge website: www. routledge.com/books/series/RSFSE/ Food Consumption in the City Practices and Patterns in Urban Asia and the Pacific Edited by Marlyne Sahakian, Czarina Saloma and Suren Erkman Eating Traditional Food Politics, Identity and Practices Edited by Brigitte Sébastia Feeding Cities Improving Local Food Access, Security and Sovereignty Edited by Christopher Bosso The Right to Food Guidelines, Democracy and Citizen Participation Country Case Studies Katharine S.E. Cresswell Riol Peasants Negotiating a Global Policy Space La Vía Campesina in the Committee on World Food Security Ingeborg Gaarde Public Policies for Food Sovereignty Social Movements and the State Edited by Annette Desmarais, Priscilla Claeys and Amy Trauger Sustainable Food Futures Multidisciplinary Solutions Edited by Jessica Duncan and Megan Bailey Food and Cooking Skills Education Why Teach People How to Cook? Anita Tull Food Riots, Food Rights and the Politics of Food Provision Edited by Naomi Hossain and Patta Scott-Villiers Food Riots, Food Rights and the Politics of Provisions Edited by Naomi Hossain and Patta Scott-Villiers First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 selection and editorial matter, N. Hossain and P. Scott-Villiers; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hossain, Naomi, editor. | Scott-Villiers, Patta, editor. Title: Food riots, food rights and the politics of provisions / edited by Naomi Hossain and Patta Scott-Villiers. Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge studies in food, society and the environment | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017016705 | ISBN 9781138040168 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315175249 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Food riots—History—21st century. | Right to food. | Food supply—Government policy. Classification: LCC HV6474 .F66 2017 | DDC 363.809/051—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016705 ISBN: 978-1-138-04016-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-17524-9 (ebk) Typeset in Goudy by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Figures and tables vii Contributors viii Glossary xi Acronyms xiii Acknowledgements xv 1 Introduction 1 PATTA SCOTT-VILLIERS AND NAOMI HOSSAIN 2 A world in protest 23 SARA BURKE 3 Framing ‘food riots’: Subsistence protests in international and national media, 2007–2012 53 NAOMI HOSSAIN, DEVANGANA KALITA, BONFACE OMONDI, LUCIO POSSE, VAIBHAV RAAJ, MUHAMMAD ASHIKUR RAHMAN, AND MICHAEL SAMBO 4 Food riots in Bangladesh?: Garments worker protests and globalised subsistence crises 76 FERDOUS JAHAN AND NAOMI HOSSAIN 5 ‘We eat what we have, not what we want’: The policy effects of food riots and eating after the 2008 crisis in Cameroon 98 LAUREN SNEYD 6 Demanding accountability for hunger in India 116 ANURADHA JOSHI, BIRAJ PATNAIK AND DIPA SINHA vi Contents 7 The constitution lies to us!: Food protests in Kenya, 2007–2012 136 CELESTINE NYAMU MUSEMBI AND PATTA SCOTT-VILLIERS 8 Authoritarian responsiveness and the greve in Mozambique 158 LUÍS DE BRITO, EGÍDIO CHAIMITE AND ALEX SHANKLAND 9 How ‘food riots’ work, and why they matter for development 177 NAOMI HOSSAIN AND PATTA SCOTT-VILLIERS Index 195 Figures and tables Figures 2.1 Grievances and demands 25 2.2 Methods of protest 28 2.3 Commodity prices, 1995–2015 34 2.4 Growth of GDP per capita for selected countries, 1995–2015 39 2.5 Global growth incidence curve, 1988–2008 43 3.1 Number of news reports mentioning ‘food riot’, 2006–2015 56 3.2 FAO Food Price Index, 2006–2015 57 3.3 News article content on the causes of the global food crisis 58 4.1 Wholesale price of coarse rice, Dhaka 1998–2016 78 4.2 Repertoires of protest 85 5.1 Cameroon food riot map 103 6.1 World and India cereal price indices, 2005–2013 119 7.1 World and Kenya maize prices, 2007–2012 138 9.1 A dynamic framework for analyzing contemporary food riots 186 Tables 2.1 Global food riots, 2007–2008 35 4.1 Protesters and petitioners as described in articles on contentious events 83 4.2 Minimum wages in the garments sector 89 5.1 Market and number of interviews in Cameroon 100 5.2 Characterization of interview data by age, gender, class 101 5.3 Cameroon’s 2008 protests: Themes and code frequency from market interview data 107 Contributors Sara Burke is a Senior Policy Analyst in the New York office of Friedrich- Ebert-Stiftung, a political think tank headquartered in Berlin, Germany. Her research focuses on global economic governance and the multilateral system, especially on the impacts economic and social inequalities and political participation at all levels of governance. Egídio Chaimite is a researcher with the Citizenship and Governance Research Group of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (IESE) in Maputo, Mozambique and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. He works on mobilization and collective action, governance, policy and the state. He has a degree in Public Administration from Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) and a Masters in Political Science from the Université de Bordeaux. Luís de Brito is Research Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (IESE) and an Associate Professor of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) in Maputo, Mozam- bique. A member of IESE’s Citizenship and Governance Research Group, he works on elections and political representation. He has a PhD in The Anthro- pology and Sociology of Politics from the Université Paris VIII. Naomi Hossain is a political sociologist at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. Her most recent book is The Aid Lab: Under- standing Bangladesh’s Unexpected Success (Oxford University Press, 2017). Ferdous Jahan is Professor of Public Administration at the University of Dhaka, and was previously Academic Coordinator at the BRAC Institute of Govern- ance and Development at BRAC University. Jahan teaches a number of top- ics on the intersection between development, governance and politics, and has worked on issues of governance, social protection, urban poverty, legal empowerment of the poor and women’s empowerment in a number of devel- oping country settings. Her current research interests governance and the judiciary, as well as public policy processes in food security, social protection, urban poverty and gender, on which she has published widely. Contributors ix Anuradha Joshi is a senior research fellow and leads the Governance Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. She is co- Research Director of the Action for Empowerment and Accountability Research Consortium.

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