Abstract
M.A. (Anthropology)
The global organic food industry has experienced incredibly high growth rates over the past twenty years. In many parts of the world the formal retail of organic food sourced consumers from an already established informal trade. The formalisation of organic food thus necessitated engagement with and monetisation of the ‘organic ethos’ inherent in the informal trade, and played an important part in the popularisation of ethical consumption. This has stimulated many larger discussions about the relationship of humankind, and industry, with the natural world, and has contributed to debates surrounding how to study the forces directing the evolution of agro-food economies.
This study contributes to these debates by framing them within the South African context. Through a twenty three month mixed methods study rooted in participant observation and guided by the tenets of constructivist grounded theory, this investigation of the formal organic food industry aims to achieve both theoretical and practical goals. On a practical level, it suggests reasons for the unique growth and composition of the industry witnessed in South Africa, while contributing to global debates surrounding the meaning of organic. On a theoretical level, it suggests that Dixon’s conception of the Cultural Economic Model may overcome some of the analytical divides witnessed in agro-food theory, ultimately contributing to a more balanced, humanised account of the forces directing the shape and shift of food economies.