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.

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The decisive role violence has played in the ordering of the Third World cannot be ignored or consigned to the past. Accordingly, we argue for a more systematic and determined attention to the connections between the devastation unleashed by colonialism, imperialism, and other forms of large-scale violence in the post-independence periods. In contradistinction to situating violence in and against the Third World as a backdrop of incomplete modernization, we recognize that its proper location is in the larger dynamics of racialized and colonial international relations. The articles in this volume address these dynamics of violence.

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