Steeped in Heritage: The Racial Politics of South African Rooibos Tea

Sarah Fleming Ives

Published by Duke University Press 2017

Steeped in Heritage

The Racial Politics of South African Rooibos Tea

Sarah Fleming Ives

In the series New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822372301

Overview
Contents

About this book

Exploring the racial and environmental politics behind South Africa’s rooibos tea industry to examine heritage-based claims to the indigenous plant by two groups of contested indigeneity: white Afrikaners and “coloured” South Africans.

Author / Editor information

Sarah Ives is a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University.

Reviews

"Ives provides an accessible and interesting perspective on the complex, ongoing issue of race relations within South Africa. Recommended."

-- C. W. Herrick Choice

“Steeped in Heritage is an excellent and highly recommendable account. Offers wonderful scope for comparison.”

-- Annika Teppo Anthropological Forum

“Steeped in Heritage is likely to be of interest to any scholar interested in anthro-ecological interactions, racial politics, questions of self-hood and belonging, or simply interested in finding meaning in the tealeaves left at the bottom of their cup.”

-- Sarah Bradley Journal of Ecological Anthropology

“A nuanced and theoretically engaged analysis. Steeped in Heritage offers a novel contribution to a long tradition of deeply ethnographic political ecology scholarship. This book will interest scholars working on a vast range of issues including indigeneity, environmental change, climate change, agricultural labor, identity politics, multispecies relationships, place-based products, and African studies.”

-- Emma McDonell Journal of Political Ecology

"Compelling and prescient . . . Steeped in Heritage is a fascinating exploration of the dynamics surrounding identity and its ties to things and places in a racist, capitalist context."

-- Aran Mackinnon African Quarterly

"Steeped in Heritage is thorough and well-thought-out . . . Excellent and highly recommendable."

-- Annika Teppo Anthropological Forum

"Steeped in Heritage is a fascinating and well-written account that refreshingly avoids the dominant paradigms associated with climate change. . . . Instead, it gives us a much-needed analysis of ecological change as a thoroughly social process, inseparable from local politics, which are dominated by structures of race and class. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary politics of southern Africa or the future of food in a time of ecological crisis."

-- Elizabeth Hull American Anthropologist

"A nuanced, elegantly written study of what it means to own and profit off a crop and the land that sustains it. Ives writes in a lyrical fashion, using the metaphors of cultivation, steeping and sipping to create an interpretive framework. . . . In this vital study of plants and people, commodities and labourers, Ives centres her discussion on the supply side to show where the tea we drink is made."

-- Abena Dove Osseo-Asare Journal of Modern African Studies

“Steeped in Heritage provides a fresh perspective on the post-apartheid situation of race relations and identity in South Africa while offering insight into the precarious rooibos economy of the Western Cape region. This book is multidisciplinary and will especially benefit those interested in South African studies, food economies, and cultural and regional identities that derive from commodity production.”

-- Gina Covert Benavidez Journal of Global South Studies

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
INTRODUCTION The “Rooibos Revolution” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1: Cultivating Indigeneity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
2: Farming the Bush Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
3: Endemic Plants and Invasive People Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
4: Rumor, Conspiracy, and the Politics of Narration Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
5: Precarious Landscapes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
CONCLUSION “Although There Is No Place Called Rooibos” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Other: 3 illustrations

eBook

Published: October 19, 2017
ISBN: 9780822372301