An ethnographic exploration of food and the city

Abstract

This article describes an ethnographic exploration of the food system that feeds the majority of the over 4.6 million residents of the fast‐growing city of Dar es Salaam, along with the key findings of this research. Such a study is important in the context of an increasingly unsustainable corporate food system that many in more affluent countries are beginning to assume is essential for feeding the world's growing and urbanizing population. Following key foods from urban eaters back to primary producers reveals a symbiotic food system made up of a multiplicity of small‐scale actors who together deliver on a city‐wide scale.