The Everyday Politics of Famine

Introduction

Famines are becoming more frequent and deadly, with 250,000 people experiencing famine in 2022 and 35 million people being on the edge of famine. For decades, there has been a scholarly consensus that famine is the result of political failure or design, and never solely the result of natural disasters. However, a political culture that makes famine politically unconscionable and that ends famine has not emerged.

Understanding Famine Politics

To understand why famines persist, we need to deepen our understanding of famine politics. So far, scholarship on the politics of famine has focused on national and international institutions, and the instrumental use of famine by actors and institutions.

Research Focus

My research will produce a ground-breaking shift in the science of famine politics by focusing on the everyday politics of famine in communities where it occurs. I am interested in how discourses and the ‘regime of truth’ about famine disperse throughout the social body (in Foucault’s words).

Key Areas of Interest

In particular, I am interested in:

1. How new deadly famines come to be normalized, preventing political rupture.
2. How these discourses can shift blame for famine suffering away from governments, warring parties, and actors in global economies, and instead place blame on natural causes and the families of those who suffer and die.

Methodology

To achieve this, I will conduct an ethnographically-informed comparative study across four sites in South Sudan and Somalia. Initial ethnographic insights have made me structure the research around four cross-case-study research strands:

• Histories and musical memories of past famine
• Community narratives that enforce social networks
• Burial and posthumous practices
• Media and social media’s role in anti-famine politics

Project Feasibility

This ambitious project is feasible because of my previous experience and networks, and because I have carefully built the capacity and track record of a team dominated by Somali and South Sudanese researchers.