Working for Justice in Food Systems on Stolen Land? Interrogating Food Movements Confronting Settler Colonialism

The evolving practice and scholarship surrounding food movements aim to address social, political, economic and ecological crises in food systems. However, limited interrogation of settler colonialism remains a crucial gap. Settler colonialism is the ongoing process of invasion that works to systematically erase and replace Indigenous Peoples with settler populations and identities. While many progressive and well-intentioned food movements engage directly with issues of land, water, identity, and power, critics argue they have also reified capitalism, white supremacy, agro-centrism and private property that are central to the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous Peoples. Scholars and advocates have called for greater accountability to the contradictions inherent in working towards social and ecological justice on stolen land. We write this paper as three settler activist-scholars to interrogate ways that social movements are responding to this call. A community-engaged methodology was used to conduct semi-structured interviews with individuals working in settler-led food movement organizations in Northwestern Ontario, Canada and in Southern Australia. We present our findings through three intersecting categories: 1) Expressions of settler inaction; 2) Mere inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and ideas; and, 3) Productive engagements and visions to confront settler colonialism. To explore the possibility of deeper engagements that confront settler colonialism, we suggest a continuum that moves from situating our(settler)selves within the framework of settler colonialism to (re)negotiating relationships with Indigenous Peoples to actualizing productive positions of solidarity with Indigenous struggles. We argue that this work is essential for food movements that aim to transform relationships with the land, each other, and ultimately forge more sustainable and equitable food futures.

Resurgence, refusal, and reconciliation through food movement organizations: A case study of Food Secure Canada’s 2018 Assembly

Indigenous food systems have been sites of deliberate and sustained disruption in the service of the settler colonial project on Turtle Island. The revitalization of traditional foodways is a powerful and popular means through which Indigenous Peoples are practicing cultural and political resurgence. We are at a crucial moment of societal reckoning reinforced by recent anti-racist uprisings and Indigenous Land Back actions. In this context, food movements have an important role to play in addressing ongoing colonial impacts on Indigenous food systems by supporting Indigenous Food Sovereignty as a way to advance reconciliation between settlers and Indigenous Peoples. Since its founding in 2005, Food Secure Canada (FSC) has become a national leader in food movements in Canada and its biennial Assembly is arguably the largest food movement event in the country. Despite its sustained engagement with Indigenous Peoples and significant efforts toward inclusion, its 2018 Assembly saw Indigenous people, Black people, and other people of color expressing important concerns, culminating in a walk-out on the last day. To understand how these events might guide transformative reconciliation in and through food movements, we analyzed 124 post-Assembly qualitative questionnaires, held 10 interviews, and analyzed organizational archives, in addition to conducting participant observation throughout the following year. This research portrays the actions taken at the Assembly to be a refusal of settler structures and processes, and the creation of a caucus space for Indigenous people, Black people, and other people of color as an act of resurgence. Engagement with FSC by a number of those involved with the protests throughout the year that followed, and the resultant commitment to center decolonization in FSC’s work, reveal the intimate connection between resurgence and reconciliation. These acts of generative refusal and resurgence are an essential part of efforts toward reconciliation without assimilation, aligned in a shared struggle toward the decolonized futures at the heart of food sovereignty for all.

Food movements, agrifood systems, and social change at the level of the national state: The Brazilian Marcha das Margaridas

Situated within the sociological debate on social change, the present article examines the potential for food movements to transform agrifood systems. Existing analyses within the field of food studies predominantly examine agrifood systems at either the global or local level. By contrast, our analysis begins with the national sphere, and seeks to demonstrate how national transformations relate to those on the global and local scales. We, thus, challenge the approach of dichotomous scales by providing categories and perspectives that highlight the relational and interdependent character of food movements. To do so, we examine the Marcha das Margaridas – a movement based in Brasil – and its achievements in transforming the national agrifood system. Established in 2000, the Marcha das Margaridas is a feminist mobilization that plays a central part in the fight against inequalities in agrifood systems and foments discussion of food politics on a multiplicity of scales. We demonstrate this by mapping the march’s public policy achievements, and by analyzing three of these in detail.

Social movements as agents of change: Fighting intersectional food inequalities, building food as webs of life

What does the diversity of social movements and food initiatives tell us about processes of social change? I argue that they offer a productive analytical lens to observe social change because they identify injustices and dynamics of inequalities in the food system and are actively engaged in transforming these. Alternative local food initiatives react to the environmental impacts of globalized food relations; food sovereignty movements highlight class inequalities and power asymmetries in the food system that affect people’s rights to culturally appropriate foodways; food justice movements denounce institutional racism; feminist movements fight persistent gender inequalities from food production to consumption; vegan movements defend animal rights. These are often mapped onto different world regions, with food justice movements more present in the US; food sovereignty movements louder in the Global South; feminist food movements more active in Latin America; and local food movements commonly in the Global North. This article brings together diverse strands of activism and research on social inequalities related to food under the conceptual umbrella of food inequalities. In addition to concept building, it contributes to a sociology of food studies by mapping the geopolitics of knowledge about social change behind the growing mobilization around food issues.

Food and social change: Culinary elites, contested technologies, food movements and embodied social change in food practices

In this introduction, we have asked a very classical sociological question and brought together interdisciplinary efforts to critically approach it, focusing on a basic issue: food. We briefly reconstruct the main approaches to social change in sociological theory and then identify main themes with which food studies have contributed to this debate. If, to avoid normative and formal approaches, theories of change require contextualization in order to keep their explanatory value, this volume brings historical and geographical context to provide an analysis of social change through the lenses of food. Methodologically, articles offer diverse approaches to food, allowing different kinds of perspectives on change. While statistical analysis or historically comparative sociology will provide correlational snapshots and structural transformations, ethnographies necessarily deal with change happening in the everyday. The articles in this monograph have been organized into four broad groups: (1) national cuisines as elite projects of social change; (2) science and technology as contested tools for social change; (3) social mobilization and food movements as agents of social change; and (4) micro- and macro-level change and beyond: culinary subjectivities, embodied social change and food transition.

To V or Not to V: Contingencies of Going Vegan

This study examines mobilization processes with a particular focus on how people come to contemplate and embrace or reject veganism. Engaging the narratives of 33 interview participants who interacted with vegan advocacy networks in Greater Philadelphia, the study accounts for how prospective vegans negotiate forces, such as social networks and ties, that activate or hinder their mobilization; and for how they prioritize veganism among other priorities. Among other manners, participants came to contemplate the prospect of becoming vegan upon recognizing veganism as congruent with their other priorities. Participants who became vegan were more likely than participants who did not to prioritize altruism, to seek information that motivated and empowered them, and to deploy strategies to attenuate antagonism. The study’s findings suggest that participation in food movements is contingent on how prospective participants prioritize, on the incentives and mindset with which they contemplate participation, and on their capacity to participate.