Dimensions
152 x 229 x 15mm
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.
The Scarcity Slot is the first book to critically examine food security in Africa.squo;s deep past. Amanda L. Logan argues that African foodways have been viewed through the lens of ysquo;the scarcity slot,isquo; a kind of Othering based on presumed differences in resources. Weaving together archaeological, historical, and environmental data with food ethnography, she advances a new approach to building long-term histories of food security on the continent in order to combat these stereotypes. Focusing on a case study in Banda, Ghana that spans the past six centuries, The Scarcity Slot reveals that people thrived during a severe, centuries-long drought just as Europeans arrived on the coast, with a major decline in food security emerging only recently. This narrative radically challenges how we think about African foodways in the past with major implications for the future.
