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A colonial metabolism: food, nutrition and extraction in Malawi

Professor Megan Vaughan
This seminar proposes the idea of colonial metabolism to understand how rural Malawian communities adapted their food systems the mid 20th century and what the consequences of this might be in the contemporary context of food insecurity, and agro-industry practices. It draws attention to how practices of colonial extraction must be situated in wider socio-ecological dynamics that include slow violence and adaptation.
Professor Megan Vaughan is Professor of African History and Health at the Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL. She previously held positions at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and began her academic career teaching at the University of Malawi. Her interdisciplinary work has mostly focused on the history of environment, agriculture, nutrition and gender in Malawi and Zambia. She has also published on the history of colonial medicine and psychiatry and on slavery in the Indian Ocean. Her most recent collaborative research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, examined the social and historical aspects of ‘chronic’ disease in sub-Saharan Africa (Vaughan, Adjaye-Gbewonyo and Mika eds, Epidemiological Change and Chronic Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa, UCL Press, 2021).

Learning points

  • How does the concept of Colonial Metabolism help us understand colonial extraction and food practices at different scales? How does this relate to Tsing’s discussion of the ‘Patchy Anthropocene’?
  • What does it mean to say that colonialism worked parasitically in this context?
  • What is the role of the colonial scientists in supporting/revealing colonial metabolism in Malawi?
  • What aspects of the socio-ecological system make colonial metabolism as this relates to consumption of beer and small animals/insects viable and what kind of multi-species relations are at stake?
  • How have and do gendered labour differences impact food practices in Malawi?
  • What are the differences (or similarities) between a Colonial Metabolism and Monsanto/Bayer Metabolism? What is the role of loss of biodiversity and potential toxicity in the latter?
  • In what ways can agro-ecological methods help envision a post-colonial metabolism?

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