ABSTRACT
This chapter offers feminist approaches to care and sustainability to envision what ‘food for degrowth’ means as practised in a Global South case study. The focus is on food provisioning, care and knowledge as strong, creative and life-sustaining practices. These practices are critical for rethinking an agrifood system that is based on sustainable livelihoods and ‘care’ful social and ecological relations. Using participatory and qualitative research methods, the chapter analyses gendered experiences and strategies in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi with a focus on African indigenous leafy vegetables. Due to colonialism and growth-oriented global food systems, these indigenous vegetables have been almost forgotten. Reclaiming them meaningfully enacts degrowth. As the study demonstrates, women’s ‘recipes’ against biodiversity loss, an increasingly commodified agrifood system and the neglect of knowledge on indigenous food set an example of a postgrowth relationship to food and agriculture and, more broadly speaking, to the environment. The chapter illustrates practices of self-provisioning in community and kitchen gardens; support of diverse economies of food provisioning in and beyond the city; and, sharing culinary knowledge in communal cooking sessions. Such lessons from the Global South challenge us to rethink the constitution of patterns of production and consumption and inspire alternative degrowth strategies.
