The Route to Food Initiative, a program component of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, has launched a special edition of the Chakula Magazine, a graphic novel entitled “The Blind Spot.”
The Route to Food Initiative, a program component of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, has launched a special edition of the Chakula Magazine, a graphic novel entitled “The Blind Spot.”
The Blind Spot brings to life the ways in which politics plays out in Kenya’s food system in the form of a visually compelling political drama set in a fictional future county called Kajibora. The main protagonist, Sifa, is a passionate young professor from the city who travels back to her hometown of Kajibora after the death of her grandfather, a renowned politician and leader of a famous peasant revolution. Upon her return, Sifa discovers that the post-revolutionary county is being taken over by a multinational industrial agribusiness company.
The graphic novel aims to use the power of storytelling to highlight how food is a deeply political issue and, most importantly, to spark a conversation around the influence of power dynamics on our global and local food systems and our ability to progressively realize the Right to Food for all. It covers various themes, including the disenfranchisement of smallholder producers, the influence of the private sector on government processes and policymaking, the erosion of food, seed, and farmer sovereignty, the continuous undermining of human rights, the need for political accountability, and the impacts of industrial agriculture on environmental justice, health, and ecosystems. The unequal position but significant potential of women to lead food systems transformation is also portrayed through the strength and aspirations of two of the novel’s main characters, Sifa and Dalili.
Through this special edition of Chakula, The Route to Food Initiative invites you to consider agroecological alternatives as a solution to chronic food insecurity and to be a champion for the realization of the Right to Food in Kenya. We advocate for just, sustainable, and equitable food and farming systems (agroecology) as a means to achieve the realization of the Right to Food in Kenya.
You can now download a copy of “The Blind Spot” here.