Environment-making, cheap-nature, and care : an anthropological study of the Hazel Food, arts, and crafts market in Tshwane

Abstract

This anthropological study identifies the actors involved in processes of environment-making at the Hazel Food, Arts, Craft and Culture Market (Hazel Food Market) in the capital city Pretoria, South Africa, and analyses such environment-making through the concepts of cheap nature, care and inclusion/exclusion. Existing studies of urban food markets in South Africa and elsewhere typically focus on products, consumers and the social and economic functions of market exchanges including tourism, gentrification and income generation. This study, constructed on the basis of participant observation and semi-formal interviews with vendors, visitors and managers, explores the market in the context of environment-making. By focusing on this activity, this dissertation contributes to the existing literature by bringing into view the various aspects and persons involved in it, including actors who constitute the market, the products that are being sold, online and offline advertising through text and visuals as well as aesthetic and other dimensions that put nature to work in the context of this market. The consequences of the kind of environment-making and deployment of nature that are documented in this dissertation are then analysed by examining forms of inclusion and exclusion among customers, vendors, products and ethnic groups within the market and its wider surrounds. In this way, the dissertation seeks to show that nature, in addition to race, and class and gender, is a potent concept for urban anthropological analysis.