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18 iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food)
Abstract
iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food) is an interdisciplinary research
project that aims to create a more sustainable food system in Johannesburg
through urban agriculture. In 2013, a multi-stakeholder engagement (MSE)
process identified appropriate technology as a key requirement in a sustainable
food system. In response, in 2014, an interdisciplinary student service-learning
course was developed at the University of Johannesburg in the departments of
Development Studies and Industrial Design. The service-learning course utilized a
methodology that integrated participatory social science and human-centered
design research methods in order to develop technologies to improve the
productivity of marginalized and resource-poor urban farmers. Teams of students
worked with farmers on three urban sites, each with their own specific
technological needs. The students’ achievement of the service-learning course
objectives was assessed through a variety of disciplinary specific practical and
written assignments.
Keywords
iZindaba Zokudla, urban agriculture, sustainable food systems change,
appropriate technology, development studies, industrial design, multi-stakeholder
engagement, participatory social science, human-centered design, service-learning
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Runninghead Right-hand pages: iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food)
Runninghead Left-hand pages: Angus Donald Campbell and Naudé Malan
18
iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About
Food)
Innovation in the Soweto Food System
Angus Donald Campbell and Naudé Malan
iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food): Innovation in the Soweto Food
System
1
is an interdisciplinary research project initiated by the departments of
Development Studies and Industrial Design at the University of Johannesburg
(UJ), South Africa. The project aims to create a more sustainable food system in
Johannesburg through urban agriculture. In 2013, iZindaba Zokudla conducted a
series of public multi-stakeholder engagement (Dubbeling, de Zeeuw, and van
Veenhuizen 2010) sessions to develop a strategic plan for urban agriculture in
Soweto.
2
Appropriate technology was identified as a key requirement for
sustainable food-systems change.
In response, an interdisciplinary service-learning (Jacoby 2015) course
was developed in 2014 to support students and urban farmers in designing
appropriate technology for marginalized and resource-poor urban farms. The
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18 iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food)
course, Urban Agriculture and Food Systems Change, was offered to Bachelor of
Technology Industrial Design students as a component of their Design Theory 4
and Product Design 4 modules and to Bachelor of Arts Honours Development
Studies students in their Participation and Institutional Development module.
Urban farmers located at three educational centers in Soweto were identified to
take part in the design process. For each site, an interdisciplinary team was
assembled that consisted of one industrial design student, between four and seven
development studies students, and between three and five local farmers.
The service-learning course was offered to the students with the following
learning objectives:
• identify opportunities for technological design through processes of
personal immersion and engagement with community partners
• design appropriate technology for resource-poor contexts through
collaborative design and social science methods
• critically evaluate the impact of relevant design processes and outcomes
Methodology
The 2014 service-learning course was developed as a direct result of the iZindaba
Zokudla multi-stakeholder engagement sessions (see Figure 18.1) (Dubbeling, de
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Zeeuw, and van Veenhuizen 2010), which began in 2013. The sessions continued
in 2014 in conjunction with the service-learning course, resulting in increased
articulation and interaction in the complex collective-action project. Broad
participation democratized opportunities for developing and refining urban-farm
technology, contextualizing and socializing it in the process. Inherent in this
methodology was an acknowledgment that technology is part of a local
sociotechnical system (Latour 2005), which includes social capital among actors
(Malan 2015a), local resources such as land, and city policies (Malan 2015b).
This acknowledgment was important to encourage appropriate technological
outcomes from the service-learning course (Smillie 2000).
[Insert 15031-1713-P2-018-Figure-001 Here]
Figure 18.1 iZindaba Zokudla multi-stakeholder engagement session at the UJ
Soweto campus. Naudé Malan and Angus D. Campbell, iZindaba Zokudla,
Johannesburg, South Africa, 2013.
The specific methods used within the service-learning course drew on
participatory action research and human-centred design (Campbell 2013; Hussain,
Sanders, and Seinert 2010). A step-by-step methodological guide was provided to
the students but was sufficiently flexible to encourage improvisation. This
methodological guide consisted of three distinct phases: (1) immersion in the
lifeworld of the farmers (Brand and Campbell 2014; Theron, Wetmore, and
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18 iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food)
Malan 2016); (2) active engagement with the farmers; and (3) continual reflection
on the process (Malan and Campbell 2014).
Immersion was encouraged through a range of field visits and theoretical
lectures. Engagement was facilitated through different design media, such as
drawings, clay, cardboard models, and toys, to enable effective three-way
communication between the designers, social scientists, and farmers. Reflection
was undertaken using private online student blogs. In each team, the industrial
design students were required to focus on the design of the technology, and the
development studies students took up roles as team managers, process monitors,
and asset and stakeholder mappers.
Learning and Technological Outcomes
Participatory methods enabled students to observe and engage with farmers on
each of the sites in order to identify appropriate designs. The process resulted in
three prototype technologies over a period of fourteen weeks of teaching time and
biweekly field trips to farming sites, farmers’ markets, local farming cooperatives,
or iZindaba Zokudla multi-stakeholder engagement sessions. The prototypes
served as the industrial design students’ major project outcome for the semester.
The students documented the design process in their blogs, which were integrated
with their fieldwork and design development into a final mini-dissertation. The
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development studies students were required to write four assignments: a
contextualization of the current food system in Soweto, their own private
reflective blog, a report on their participatory process, and an evaluation of the
outcomes of the project.
[Insert 15031-1713-P2-018-Figure-002 Here]
Figure 18.2 Seedling growing system concept discussion at Setlakalana Molepo
Adult Education Centre, Jomari Budricks, Angus D. Campbell, and Naudé Malan,
Take Root Seedling Growing System for iZindaba Zokudla, Johannesburg, South
Africa, 2014.
The three prototype technologies that were realized surpassed all
expectations, resulting in the university’s Technology Transfer Office
provisionally patenting them after the course. They included a self-watering
seedling growing system (see Figure 18.2), an off-grid food storage and cooling
system (see Figures 18.3 and 18.4), and an off-grid water pump. The seedling
growing system was exhibited internationally and included in the publication
Design to Feed the World (Di Lucchio and Imbesi 2015, 144, 153–4). The off-
grid food storage and cooling system has been further validated by an external
engineering company, Resolution Circle, to be batch manufactured. This process
still continues but is not open to participating farmers to test its appropriateness
effectively. Therefore, the water pump was consciously made more accessible. It
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was documented in an open source manual,
3
which used readily available
plumbing components for do-it-yourself manufacture by urban farmers. The
manual was printed and disseminated to 150 urban farmers in two of the iZindaba
Zokudla engagement sessions and has thus far been viewed seventy times and
downloaded thirteen times (Jacobsz, Campbell, and Malan 2014).
[Insert 15031-1713-P2-018-Figure-003 Here]
Figure 18.3 Food-storage prototype evaluation with urban farmers from
Siyazenzela. Natalia Tofas, Angus D. Campbell, and Naudé Malan, Umlimi
Urban Food Storage Unit for iZindaba Zokudla, Johannesburg, South Africa,
2014.
The fourteen private student blogs documented the design research
process and illustrated how design and societal considerations can be built into
technology development. On analysis, it was clear that a methodological structure
with defined disciplinary outputs succeeded in meeting the intended learning
objectives of the course. Apart from limited interpersonal conflict, students and
farmers collaborated amicably.
The service-learning aspect of the course led to increased diversity within
the student and farmer teams in terms of culture and social class. This was
important to encourage appropriate and relevant knowledge outcomes in the
postcolonial and postapartheid South African context (Mbembe 2015). Both
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student groups benefited from learning from each other through collaboration,
although depending on team dynamics, some of the development studies students
felt that the practical design of the physical technology overshadowed their
written theoretical outputs. This conflict required coordination by the lecturers to
help bridge the two disciplines.
[Insert 15031-1713-P2-018-Figure-004 Here]
Figure 18.4 The evaporative cooled food storage system accommodates the post-
harvest activities of food packing, transportation, and display. Natalia Tofas,
Angus D. Campbell, and Naudé Malan, Umlimi Urban Food Storage Unit for
iZindaba Zokudla, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2014.
Real-world learning, with the associated complexity involved in the
interactions between multiple actors, requires sufficient time. The service-learning
course somewhat underestimated these time requirements. Even with these
shortcomings, the course benefited both the urban farmers, who received more
appropriate technology, and the students, who experienced real-world embedding
of their own learning—resulting in highly appropriate knowledge outcomes for
the next generation of South African citizens.
4
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Notes
References
Brand, Kyle, and Angus Donald Campbell. 2014. “In-Context and Ecology
Immersion for Resilience: An Exploration of the Design of a Household
Farming Kit.” In Proceedings of the International Union of Architects
World Congress: UIA 2014 Durban: Architecture Otherwhere: Resilience,
Ecology, Values, edited by Amira Osman et al., 1332–43. Durban, South
Africa: UIA.
Campbell, Angus Donald. 2013. “Designing for Development in Africa: A
Critical Exploration of Literature and Case Studies from the Disciplines of
Industrial Design and Development Studies.” In Proceedings of the
Gaborone International Design Conference (GIDEC) 2013: Design
Future: Creativity, Innovation, and Development. Gaborone: University of
Botswana.
Di Lucchio, Loredana, and Lorenzo Imbesi. 2015. Design to Feed the World: 100
Projects, 50 Schools, 5 Topics. Milan, Italy: RDesignPress.
Dubbeling, Marielle, Henk de Zeeuw, and René van Veenhuizen. 2010. Cities,
Poverty and Food: Multi-Stakeholder Policy and Planning in Urban
Agriculture. Rugby: Practical Action Publishing.
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18 iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food)
Hussain, Sofia, Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders, and Martin Seinert. 2010. “Participatory
Design with Marginalized People in Developing Countries: Challenges
and Opportunities Experienced in a Field Study in Cambodia.”
International Journal of Design 6 (2): 91–109.
Jacobsz, Werner C., Angus Donald Campbell, and Naudé Malan. 2014. No. 1 in
the Izindaba Zokudla Make Your Own Series of DIY Technology Guides:
How to Make Your Own Water Pump. Johannesburg, South Africa: Design
Society Development DESIS Lab.
www.academia.edu/18855164/No._1_in_the_Izindaba_Zokudla_Make_Y
our_Own_Series_of_DIY_Technology_Guides_How_to_Make_Your_Ow
n_Water_Pump.
Jacoby, Barbara. 2015. Service-Learning Essentials: Questions, Answers, and
Lessons Learned. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-
Theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Malan, Naudé. 2015a. “Design and Social Innovation for Systemic Change:
Creating Social Capital for a Farmers’ Market.” In The Virtuous Circle:
Design Culture and Experimentation, edited by Luisa Collina, Laura
Galluzzo, and Anna Meroni, 965–78. Milan, Italy: McGraw-Hill
Education.
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18 iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food)
Malan, Naudé. 2015b. “Urban Farmers and Urban Agriculture in Johannesburg:
Responding to the Food Resilience Strategy.” Agrekon 54 (2): 51–75.
Malan, Naudé, and Angus Donald Campbell. 2014. “Design, Social Change, and
Development: A Social Methodology.” In Design with the Other 90%:
Cumulus Johannesburg Conference Proceedings, edited by Amanda
Breytenbach et al., 94–101. Johannesburg, South Africa: Cumulus
Johannesburg.
Mbembe, Achille. 2015. “Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the
Archive.” Africa Is a Country.
https://africaisacountry.atavist.com/decolonizing-knowledge-and-the-
question-of-the-archive.
Smillie, Ian. 2000. Mastering the Machine Revisited: Poverty, Aid, and
Technology. Rugby, UK: Practical Action Publishing.
Theron, Francois, Stephen Wetmore, and Naudé Malan. 2016. “Exploring Action
Research Methodology: Practical Options for Grassroots Development
Research.” In Development, Change, and the Change Agent: Facilitation
at Grassroots, edited by Francois Theron and Nthuthuko Mchunu, 317–
41. Hatfield, South Africa: Van Schaik Publishers.
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18 iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food)
1
. For more information, see
www.designsocietydevelopment.org/project/izindaba-zokudla/ and
www.facebook.com/izindabazokudla/.
2
Soweto is a former apartheid nonwhite township on the outskirts of
Johannesburg and currently hosts a UJ campus, where the engagement
events took place.
3
The open source movement is one where intellectual property is freely shared
for broad dissemination; in this case, the manual was licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
International License.
4
This work is based on research supported by the University of Johannesburg
Teaching Innovation Fund and in part by the National Research
Foundation (NRF) of South Africa for the Thuthuka, unique grant number
88030 held by Angus D. Campbell and titled, “Designing Development:
An Exploration of Technology Innovation by Small-Scale Urban Farmers
in Johannesburg,” and unique grant number 88059 held by Dr. Naudé
Malan and titled, “Innovation in the Soweto Food System: Engaging with
Soweto Agriculture.” Any opinion, finding, and conclusion or
recommendation expressed in this material are that of the authors, and the
NRF does not accept any liability in this regard.
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