RETHINKING FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY AMONG A FORMER HUNTERGATHERER GROUP IN NAMIBIA: THE IMPACTS OF THE LOCAL FOOD ENVIRONMENT AND MULTI-DIMENSIONAL DRIVERS OF FOOD CHOICES ON DIET QUALITY

The diets of former hunter-gatherers, and the diets of many Indigenous Peoples worldwide, are changing at a fast pace, and malnutrition has become a widespread problem. Several reports highlight the severity of food insecurity among the San people a generic term for several Southern African Indigenous ethnic groups – calling for research to investigate the quality and specificities of their contemporary diet and its influencing factors. This dissertation is the outcome of a four-year multidisciplinary study aiming to understand the underlying causes of food and nutrition insecurity among a Namibian San community, the Khwe San people in Bwabwata National Park (BNP). Experiencing rapid changes in socio-cultural and environmental settings over their recent history, and being the target of many development projects, their traditional food system has undergone substantial changes over the past few decades, and little has to date been done to examine these changes or the implications they may have. The dissertation applies a food systems approach in an attempt to understand the contemporary food environment and food choices of the Khwe San and assesses one particular food strategy, namely crop cultivation in more depth, both from community and stakeholders’ perspectives. The study began with an initial ethnographic phase, followed by qualitative and quantitative data collection throughout three extended periods of fieldwork (five months each) between 2016 and 2018 in the eastern part of BNP. Research methods included participant observation, a socio-economic survey, a dietary intake survey, structured and semi-structured interviews, and village meetings. The findings of this dissertation demonstrate that the dietary diversity of the study population is extremely low (the average dietary diversity score was below 2.5 out of 10). No direct association was found between socio-economic variables and diet quality. Further research of the food environment provided some explanations for the low dietary diversity score, with several nutritional food groups missing from the local food environment. Among the local food sources, bush, governmental food aid and agricultural fields are perceived by the Khwe as being the most important. However, the restricted and recently denied access to bush habitats due to externally imposed conservation regulations had caused severe perturbations in the local food availability. The importance of crop cultivation was ranked highly, although its dietary contribution was found to be minimal. In-depth interviews with Khwe elders reveal how historical and political events and cultural norms have shaped diets over the past five decades. Current preferences for traditional foods was found to be divided, strongly influenced by access, but traditional food preferences have also declined due to erosion of traditional knowledge. This study found the main determinants of current Khwe food choices to be sensory drivers, access, food insecurity, costs, and health concerns. Nevertheless, substantial gaps in nutritional knowledge prevent many of the Khwe from making informed food choices. Assessment of the most advocated food strategy in BNP, namely crop cultivation, reveals that both institutional factors and local practices are influencing the poor production outcome. Despite the centralised governmental support efforts, yields remain low due to the incompetence, conflicts and disharmonised approaches between the various governmental institutions. The study describes the current state of community capitals and the environmental context within which crop cultivation takes place, all of which play a defining role in outcomes, but remain largely disregarded by the highly authoritative governmental agencies. This dissertation contributes to the growing body of knowledge on food environment and food choice studies in rural settings of lowand middleincome countries by introducing new conceptual and methodological nuances. Moreover, the principal findings point to the fact that the Khwe San lack access to adequate food in terms of quantity, nutritional value and cultural meaning. The Khwe are trapped in a vicious cycle of malnutrition due to a dysfunctional local food system in which they have no agency over the food sources, and are deprived of access to their natural food resources on their traditional lands. This violates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and contradicts the human right to food. The results of the dissertation anticipate guiding future policy and development interventions to improve dietary adequacy among San people by: ensuring access to nutritious foods in an inclusive, participatory manner; supporting informed dietary behaviour; strengthening community capitals, and; fostering positive change in the food environment. National and regional policy and practice need urgent reform in order to secure user rights over land and resources, and to ensure a just food system for the Indigenous inhabitants of the BNP.