Starving on a Full Stomach

by Wylie, Diana

• ISBN13: 9780813920689
• ISBN10: 081392068X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

An ideology of African ignorance that justified white supremacy grew up in South Africa during the first half of the twentieth century: if Africans were hungry, it was because they didn't know how to feed themselves properly; they were ignorant of "how to live." As a result, growing scientistic impatience with African culture reconciled many white South Africans to the harsh policies of apartheid.In Starving on a Full Stomach: Hunger and the Triumph of Cultural Racism in Modern South Africa, Diana Wylie tells the story of the foods Africans ate and the maladies they suffered, while she shows the ways in which doctors and politicians understood and acted upon those experiences in modern African life.Wylie compares South Africa's food history with that of medieval Europe and modern America, and concludes by presenting some surprising similarities. Starving on a Full Stomach provides both a warning and a provocative framework that forces us to look at the continuing potential for misunderstanding and mismanagement of today's medical and food crises.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction: Hunger and Ideologies of Exclusion	1	(20)
Part One Cultural Racism's Fertile Ground
European Cultural Pride: An Evaluation	21	(18)
Before the Land Was Lost: African Food Culture in the Nineteenth Century	39	(20)
Part Two The Benevolent Father: An Embattled Rationale for White Supremacy
The Politics of Famine: State Paternalism in Rural South Africa, 1910-1948	59	(32)
Scientific Paternalism: Hunger and the Measurement of Urban Poverty, 1910-1948	91	(36)
Part Three People without Science: A Modern Rationale for White Supremacy
The Threat of ``Race Deterioration'': Nutritional Research in Industrial Context	127	(36)
Missionaries of Science: The Growth of the Malnutrition Syndrome, 1920-1960	163	(40)
Part Four The Triumph of Scientism and Cultural Essentialism
Denial and Coercion: The State Response to the Malnutrition Syndrome, 1940s to 1960s	203	(34)
Epilogue: The Heritage of Disrespect	237	(8)
Notes	245	(36)
Bibliography	281	(18)
Index	299