Food Sovereignty, Justice, and Indigenous Peoples

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Powys Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Capacity ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Wild Rice ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Collective Self

Indigenous peoples often claim that colonial powers, such as settler states, violate Indigenous peoples’ collective self-determination over their food systems, or food sovereignty. Violations of food sovereignty are often food injustices. Yet Indigenous peoples claim that one of the solutions to protecting food sovereignty involves the conservation of particular foods, from salmon to wild rice. This chapter advances an argument that claims of this kind advance particular theories of food sovereignty and food injustice that are not actually grounded in static conceptions of Indigenous cultures; instead, such claims offer important contributions for understanding how settler colonial domination is a form of injustice that undermines key relationships that support Indigenous collective self-determination as an adaptive capacity.

Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Natural Resources

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérémie Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The Right

The issue of sovereignty over natural resources has been a key element in the development of international law, notably leading to the emergence of the principle of States’ permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. However, concomitant to this focus on States’ sovereignty, international human rights law proclaims the right of peoples to self-determination over their natural resources. This has led to a complex and ambivalent relationship between the principle of States’ sovereignty over natural resources and peoples’ rights to natural resources. This chapter analyses this conflicting relationship and examines the emergence of the right of peoples to freely dispose of their natural resources and evaluates its potential role in contemporary advocacy. It notably explores how indigenous peoples have called for the revival of their right to sovereignty over natural resources, and how the global peasants’ movement has pushed for the recognition of the concept of food sovereignty.

Indigenous Planning: From Forced Assimilation to Self-determination

2021 ◽  
pp. 088541222110266
Author(s):  
Michael Hibbard
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Indigenous Planning ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Land

Interest in Indigenous planning has blossomed in recent years, particularly as it relates to the Indigenous response to settler colonialism. Driven by land and resource hunger, settler states strove to extinguish Indigenous land rights and ultimately to destroy Indigenous cultures. However, Indigenous peoples have persisted. This article draws on the literature to examine the resistance of Indigenous peoples to settler colonialism, their resilience, and the resurgence of Indigenous planning as a vehicle for Indigenous peoples to determine their own fate and to enact their own conceptions of self-determination and self-governance.

scholarly journals Indigene Völker und Landrechte : ein Überblick

1988 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 164-176
Author(s):  
L. T. Søftestad
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Cultural Heterogeneity ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
The Future ◽  
Indigenous Human Rights ◽  
Special Rights

Abstract. The paper focuses on indigenous peoples, their present Situation and prospects for the future. While emphasizing the cultural heterogeneity of indigenous peoples worldwide, the paper at the same time Stresses certain basic similarities especially as concerns their relation with land. It argues that in order for indigenous cultures to regain control of their own future, necessary recognition of their special rights to land as well as acceptance of some form of self-determination is mandatory. The ongoing work on securing these rights by indigenous and non-indigenous NGO's and within the UN and ILO is discussed. It is argued that this work on indigenous human rights must continue and that increased international concern is necessary in order to secure to indigenous peoples their basic and necessary human rights.

scholarly journals Food sovereignty, Diné ontologies: spiritual and political ecology as tools for self-determination

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-59
Author(s):  
Eugénie Clément Picos
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Navajo Nation ◽  
Tribal Government ◽  
Indigenous Lands ◽  
Actual Movement

This article focuses on the different actors involved in the food sovereignty movement in the Navajo Nation. By first looking at the historical roots of colonization and western dominance over Indigenous lands and their food systems, I try to give some perspective on the actual movement to end colonization and capitalism. Both are seen as linked and are considered obstacles for the self-determination of the Navajos and Indigenous Peoples in general. The different actors involved (farmers, grassroots activists, intellectuals and academics) put forth food sovereignty as a key tool for decolonization. This might include a structural change in their political and economical lives, with interpersonal conflicts and frictions with the tribal government and the federal one. The tensions between the extractive economy, environmentalists and food sovereignty are present in the Navajo nation and impact their communities and the quality of their lives.

scholarly journals Indigenous Knowledges Driving Technological Innovation

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 241-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
The Hi‘iaka Working Group
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Geospatial Technologies ◽  
Cultural Survival ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Critical Step

This policy brief explores the use and expands the conversation on the ability of geospatial technologies to represent Indigenous cultural knowledge. Indigenous peoples’ use of geospatial technologies has already proven to be a critical step for protecting tribal self-determination. However, the ontological frameworks and techniques of Western geospatial technologies differ from those of Indigenous cultures, which inevitably lead to mistranslation and misrepresentation when applied to cultural knowledge. The authors advocate the creation of new technologies that are more conducive to Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies in an effort to break down the barriers to the expression and preservation of cultural heritage and cultural survival.

scholarly journals Building Healthy Community Relationships Through Food Security and Food Sovereignty

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. 25-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Treena Delormier ◽  
Kaylia Marquis
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Advisory Group ◽  
Personnel Turnover ◽  
Healthy Community

ABSTRACTBackgroundFood insecurity disproportionately affects Indigenous Peoples and is linked to poor health outcomes. Indigenous Peoples’ food systems once sustained their thriving societies; however, colonial policies of displacement and imposed assimilation severed connections to Indigenous food systems and lands, disrupting identity, culture, and well-being.ObjectiveIn this article we share a grass-roots designed program that addresses food security and heeds Haudenosaunee teachings. The Story of Creation, the Great Law, and Ohénton Karihwatéhkwen (the words that come before all else) were the basis of the framework. The program acknowledges and uses community strengths and skills to enhance social connections and links with land and creation.MethodsThe program brought together interested and knowledgeable community members and stakeholders to discuss and better understand food security in the community. This group formed as an advisory group called Ieiénthos Akotióhkwa – ‘Planting Group’ who shaped the food security activities.ResultsThe program delivered workshops to build skills and share knowledge about food production and preparation. It targeted diverse participant interests and needs within an environment meant to nurture social connections. The program planted food-bearing trees and plants and created a seed library to create edible landscapes. We invited a broad scope of community knowledge- and skill-holders to share their talents with the community, to reinforce positive connections with each other, and to carry on cultural practices.ConclusionsChallenges included program sustainability linked to short-term funding and personnel turnover. Strengths involved using a culturally based framework that enhanced program coherence, and facilitated collaboration with local initiatives focused on well-being, practicing culture, and respecting the environment. Haudenosaunee teachings hold values and principles for a society that provides food for all. These teachings are a framework for a culturally rich program to support food security skills and resources, but also Indigenous cultural identity and practices.

Stories that Nourish: Minnesota Anishinaabe Wild Rice Narratives

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-91
Author(s):  
Amelia V. Katanski
Keyword(s):  
Wild Rice ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Gerald Vizenor ◽  
The People ◽  
Winona Laduke

Anishinaabe manoomin (wild rice) narratives maintain core aspects of Anishinaabe identity and epistemology, constituting Anishinaabe gikendaasowin (knowledge). Ranging from aadizokaanag to more contemporary dibaajimowinan, these narratives describe the close historical, spiritual, ecological, and material relationships between Anishinaabe communities and manoomin and demonstrate the importance to Anishinaabe self-determination of maintaining such connection. Manoomin feeds the people, and stories by Jim Northrup, Heid Erdrich, Linda LaGarde Grover, Gerald Vizenor, and Winona LaDuke, among others, propagate manoomin gikendaasowin, which supports Anishinaabe food sovereignty activism that seeks to protect and maintain manoomin and provide the nourishment that helps Anishinaabe communities to thrive.

Feeding Indigenous people in Canada

2020 ◽  
pp. 002087282091621
Author(s):  
Tabitha Robin (Martens) ◽  
Mary Kate Dennis ◽  
Michael Anthony Hart
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Indigenous Children ◽  
History Of

Historically, hunger was used as a tool of coercion and manipulation, and as a weapon to eradicate Indigenous populations. Through policy decisions, the support for and removal of Indigenous children, and other assimilative practices, social work has contributed to the perpetuation of ‘helping practices’ which damaged Indigenous cultures and well-being. Today, experiences of hunger are still tied to colonialism. There is a need to examine the complex history of feeding Indigenous peoples in Canada and to work to reclaim and heal Indigenous food systems. For social work, this requires an emphasis on Indigenous ways of helping led by Indigenous peoples.

scholarly journals Unsettling Settler Food Movements: Food Sovereignty and Decolonization in Canada

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Matties
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Food Movements ◽  
Alternative Food Movements ◽  
Motivation For Change

This article examines the connections between agriculture, alternative food movements, and settler colonialism. In particular I examine how settler agriculture and control of food throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been used as a tool of colonization, and how food sovereignty offers a corrective to the imposition of Western, colonial, gendered, and racialized foodways. I also explore Indigenous food sovereignty in North America as a model that honors and reclaims Indigenous foodways and self-determination, and addresses the alarming rates of food insecurity and diet-related health issues among Indigenous populations. Following in the footsteps of feminist and decolonial scholars, I seek to critically analyse the discourses of alternative food movements to discover how alternative food movements can transform the colonial system rather than unconsciously perpetuate it. I argue that as settlers working to create equitable and sustainable food systems we must recognize complicity in colonialism, engage Indigenous perspectives and narratives, and work to support Indigenous communities seeking Indigenous food sovereignty and self-determination. To do so requires creating alliances based on learning about our differences from and with each other, and embracing settler discomfort as a motivation for change.

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