Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study
Sweden
fellow
Elizabeth Hull
2024-2025
Home institution
SOAS University of London
Country of origin (home institution)
United Kingdom
Discipline(s)
Anthropology and ethnology; Colonial and postcolonial history; Social Sciences
Theme(s)
Agriculture & Food; Gender, Family & Youth; Inequalities, inclusion & Social Innovation; Regional Studies
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Elizabeth Hull has been conducting ethnographic research in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa since 2006. Her research focuses on diverse livelihood practices and food access, and how these activities relate to experiences of citizenship, aspiration, and state expectations. A theme running through her research concerns the ways in which familial and social values intersect with fluctuating
values for labour, money, or food.
Hull’s first book, Contingent Citizens: Professional Aspiration in a South African Hospital (2017) explored the ambiguous status of South Africa’s public-sector workers. Focusing on a resource-constrained government hospital, Hull showed that nurses experienced professional identity as necessary but insufficient for meeting aspirations. Based on these findings, she argued that formal sector work is both a privileged and a precarious site of citizenship-making in contemporary South Africa. Recently, her research has focused on the experiences of people working in food-based livelihoods, and how they are rebuilding rural food systems after Covid-19. Her research has been published in leading anthropology, development and regional
journals including World Development, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.
Research Project
Ethnicity and moral economies of food in South Africa
In South Africa's recent elections in May 2024, the African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority for the first time, amid growing food insecurity, unemployment, and energy crises. Attempts by political actors to consolidate support by provoking anti-immigrant hostility was accompanied with increased tensions in the food sector, particularly affecting foreign-owned businesses.
In this project, Hull moves beyond national-level xenophobic discourse to explore the construction and mobilization of ethnicity among food retailers in northern KwaZulu-Natal. In an area frequently associated with strong and politicised ethnic allegiances, she shows that ethnicity is not fixed but subtly negotiated as retailers navigate the local food economy shaped by scarcity and myriad social practices of exchange.
Research Interests:
ethnography; KwaZulu-Natal; South Africa; livelihood practices; food access; citizenship; aspiration; state expectations; labour; money; food; rural food systems