Food sovereignty has become a powerful concept to critique the dominant global food regime. Although it has not taken root in South Africa as fiercely as elsewhere, we use this concept to explore how one small-scale farmer seeks to wean herself from the dominant food system in the small town of Mtubatuba, KwaZulu-Natal. Using ethnographic methods and in-depth interviews about this single intense and extreme case, we explore this farmer's commitment and argue that it constitutes what we call the 'lived experience of food sovereignty'. If food sovereignty is concerned with small-farmer control over decisions about food cultivation, distribution and consumption, we examine this farmer's praxis and explore the obstacles she faces. These include gendered and racialized agrarian questions, land struggles, social reproduction and perceptions of her indigenous crops. We also examine the networks, knowledge, systems and methods that have allowed her to cultivate her self-reliance. We are also indebted to Ms Fakazile Mthethwa for sharing with us her time, knowledge and attention, and we thank Smanga Khumalo, Mohammed Khan, Nokuthula Ngubane and Menzi Bhengu for research assistance. Garrett Graddy-Lovelace provided excellent feedback on an earlier draft. We also thank the anonymous reviewers of this Journal for their comments and suggestions. bs_bs_banner 1 Subsistence agriculture in Mtubatuba, as elsewhere in the rural hinterlands of South Africa, typically refers to agricultural production on small plots of land, usually for domestic consumption and augmenting other sources of food.In fact, what we have seen in this area is that far from indicating self-sufficiency, in many cases subsistence farming means relying on remittances and social grants not only to buy food but also to cover the monetary expenses of farming (such as buying implements, seeds and paying for transport). On the racialized history of subsistence agriculture in this regard, see Bundy (1979) and Mbeki (1964). 2 Imifino is an isiZulu term for edible wild or weedy leafy green vegetables. The term itself is dynamic and subjective and indicates the importance of a plant for the indigenous peoples using the term.

This paper seeks to contribute to the growing body of critical scholarship that extends cosmopolitanism beyond its Kantian conceptions in International Relations (IR). It examines the promise of the ubuntu philosophy which is popular in South Africa and asks whether it can lead to what Pieterse (Development and Change, 37, 2006, 1247) calls “emancipatory cosmopolitanism.” Using Wiredu's (1996) “sympathetic impartiality,” the paper explores insights from this indigenous ubuntu philosophy to critique dominant conceptions of cosmopolitan thought in IR.

Multiple United Nations (UN) meetings are adopting "Nature-based Solutions" (NbS) in their climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions from industrial food and farming. However, there are risks that NbS could exacerbate inequalities with more effective, low-cost agroecological options marginalized. Increased policy attention on solutions for climate, nature and people offers prospects for reversals in favor of NbS that redistribute funding and redress power inequalities, placing Indigenous peoples, small-scale farmers, women, fishers, pastoralists, and forest dwellers at the center of implementation efforts.

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Hybrid science-society approaches for knowledge production are often framed by a transdisciplinary approach. Most forms of “linear” progression of science informing policy or the “production” of knowledge as a one-way process are increasingly being challenged. This is also true for coastal and marine sciences informing decision-making to support sustainable development of coastal areas. From the early 2010s, South Africa had one of the most progressive and well-structured frameworks for the establishment of integrated coastal management (ICM) in order to achieve societal objectives for its valuable coastal area. Even so, the implementation of the legislation, policies and guidelines remain a challenge, especially at the local level in municipalities. This paper reports on a social experiment that was intended to examine the possibility for a new knowledge negotiation process to unsettle the highly structured, nested and regular policy process, which forms the basis of ICM in South Africa. This paper reflects on an experimental application of a participatory methodology known as a “competency group” to co-produce knowledge for coastal and marine management. The group members, a combination of codified, tacit and embedded knowledge holders, agreed to serve on a competency group and met on six occasions over a 12-month period in 2013. This group “negotiated” amongst themselves to achieve a common understanding of knowledge useful for the management of beach water quality on the Golden Mile, the prime beachfront of Durban, a South African city. The paper provides a novel lens into a potentially distinctive, challenging and imminently useful approach of co-producing knowledge for coastal governance, especially in a middle-income country where the social and political context is complex.