Funding success: Cassava's ambivalent history in West Nile, Uganda
Dr Elizabeth Storer has been awarded British Academy / Leverhulme Trust funding to study the toxicity of Cassava (manioc) in Uganda.
We're happy to share the news that Dr Elizabeth Storer, Lecturer in Health Geography, has been awarded a British Academy / Leverhulme Trust small grant for a collaborative project entitled "Plants, Toxicity and Science at African Borderlands: Cassava's Ambivalent History in West Nile, Uganda."
Cassava (manioc) is a staple survival crop for agricultural communities across Uganda. On account of the crop’s ability to flourish in infertile soils, survive drought and resist pests, cassava has emerged as an African-led solution to underdevelopment. Yet technocratic blueprints for cassava production and export overlook innate and agential aspects of the crop. Cassava tubers contain cyanide, which can be lethal to humans in cumulative and high doses. In West Nile, a borderland sub-region of Uganda, lethal cassava poisonings are becoming common.
This project, which is a partnership between QMUL and Muni University, West Nile, uses ethnographic and 'plant history' interviews to understand the drivers of toxic exposures within the border region. It asks how established agricultural methods of preparation which have ‘domesticated’ cassava interact with environmental change, genetic modification, shifting market economies, and state mistrust.