Defining famine

Discussing the definitions and theories of famine is important because these definitions shape and provide impetus for the response to famines. It seems to me that there is a spectrum of definitions. At one end of the spectrum is the definition first put forth by Thomas Malthus, a British scholar, in 1798. According to de Waal in Famine Crimes, “Malthus identified famine as a shortfall in the supply of food in a given area and, simultaneously, the death by starvation of a substantial proportion of the inhabitants.” Malthus, who is well known for his theories on population change, believed that famine was an inevitable response to population growth. As the population of a country or area increases, without corresponding increases in the supply of food, the supply of food will not be enough to feed everyone. Some people will starve and die and in this way, the population naturally controls itself.

This definition of famine, and subsequent similar definitions, were used as a form of discourse and taken on by governments as justification for neoliberal policies. “Discourse” is a postdevelopment concept, put forth by French philosopher Michel Foucault, and depicted in one of our course texts, Theories of Development by Richard Peet and Elaine Hartwick. According to Peet and Hartwick, discourses are rationalized statements or arguments made by those among us considered “experts." What is postulated by these experts is considered fact or objectively true. For example, in class we accept and write down what our professor tells us, because he/she is the professor and it is her job to tell us what is true and what isn't.

de Waal points out that there has never been any empirical evidence to support Malthus’ theory. The school of postdevelopment would argue that it was accepted as true and as a basis for policies because it was put forth by a scholar. once accpted, governments could then assume responsibility for addressing famines because of the discourse that it was inevitable and just a result of nature taking its course. This idea ties well into the neoliberal concept of market forces and that governments should intervene minimally, even during times of financial crises, because the market will eventually, and naturally, even itself out.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Amartya’s Sen’s definition of famine, referenced by de Waal in Famine Crimes. In his Poverty and Famines, published in 1981, Sen stated that “starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough food to eat.” Sen’s thoughts can still be considered a form of discourse and can be used for justification for a different response to famine. Because famines can occur even when there is enough food, interventions should increase famine sufferers’ access to food. It becomes the duty of governments to ensure not only that a supply of food exists, but that it is available to every person. Interventions would involve job creation, lowering or subsidizing the price of food, or cash transfers for those who cannot afford to purchase food.

Somewhere between these two concepts, I believe, lies the definition of famine adopted by humanitarian agencies. According to de Waal and another postdevelopment writer, James Ferguson who wrote The Anti-Politics Machine, a book we covered in class, humanitarian agencies are, in practice and often by law, apolitical. They avoid and often ignore the political circumstances in a country when crafting their responses to crises of poverty and hunger. If these organizations held governments as solely responsible for addressing poverty or famine, they would have no way of justifying their own existence.

In The Anti-Politics Machine, Ferguson writes about development projects in Lesotho. In the first part of the book, he analyzes a World Bank report about Lesotho which creates a specific picture of conditions in the country that are vastly different from actual conditions. According to Ferguson, this picture is one “in which the colonial past is a blank, economic stagnation is due to government inaction and ‘development’ results from ‘development’ projects.” In regards to famine, the humanitarian definition is one that creates a space for humanitarian response - another example of the use of discourse. Famine is a result of government inaction and can be addressed only by emergency aid, managed by foreign institutions and governments. de Waal refer to this as “internationalizing responsibility” which “means giving an indefinitely wide array of people (theoretically the whole population of the globe, practically the concerned citizens of aid-giving countries) a stake in disasters and disaster relief.”

I am, for the purposes of trying to write succinctly, largely generalizing and theories regarding famine are a lot more complex than I am presenting them. The purpose of this post was to demonstrate that although famine is generally thought of as a lack of food, it is an extremely complex issue. The lack of attention to its complexity, which is one of the main ideas that de Waal is trying to deal with in Famine Crimes, has had deleterious consequences. I will be taking a closer look at these complexities – and what has been done to deal with them (or ignore them)– in later posts.