Presentation short abstract

This work draws on new materialism and archival records to historise the political ecology of Xhosa umqombothi beer. Transformed from sorghum to maize through colonial and apartheid rule, this living food sheds light on the politics of altering materialities and relations in food assemblages.

Presentation long abstract

New materialist perspectives on food can be approached through thinking such as “nurturing of the natural” (Brenton, 2004); how human-nonhuman relations through food alter conditions of existence, and in turn, change food itself. This work concretises such thinking through (his)storising umqombothi – one (Xhosa South African) of the many forms of indigenous beer present throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Beers are lively foods, where human relations to microbes, crops, water and vessels make (food) materialities, in turn ruled by the “thing-power” of those other-than-human things (Bennett, 2010). Traditionally, umqombothi was sorghum-based, but through a complex of colonial and apartheid politics rendering maize the staple crop, it has been transformed into a sorghum-maize beer - as well as swiftness, control and cleanliness. What was previously a week-long process in collaboration with weather, microorganisms, human labour, grains and tools, is now a speedy 3-day affair through the composition of stable products where unruly fermentation can be commanded. However, this new umqombothi poses toxicological risks to its humans, aptly illustrating the inseparable nature of relations and materialities of foods. Maize (and modernity) makes umqombothi anew, and alters the political ecologies of this food. Drawing on historical records I aim to use umqombothi as a lens to understand how the intertwining of food and politics have impacted contemporary farming realities in South Africa.