Unlike any other resource on the market, this textbook explores a diverse array of Indigenous food systems from across Canada, including Anishinaabeg, Asatiwisipe, Cree, Métis, Migmag, and Tsartlip. Seeking solutions to food insecurity and well-being for current and future generations, Indigenous and non-Indigenous food practitioners and scholars document the voices and experiences of community members encountered in their research, thus promoting an understanding of the barriers and challenges to Indigenous food systems and presenting ways used to reclaim cultural identity and food sovereignty. Offering in-depth case studies and critical conversations, Indigenous Food Systems reinforces the importance of the revitalization of Indigenous food knowledges for the health and well-being of Indigenous and Canadian populations.
This unique collection is a critical resource for students studying food security and food sovereignty in Indigenous studies, public health, anthropology, and social sciences as well as a useful reader for policy-makers, researchers, and community practitioners.
FEATURES
highlights community-based case studies, which demonstrate how Indigenous communities are leading the way to design and implement community-based initiatives in collaborative spirit
pedagogical features including key terms, learning objectives, glossaries, critical thinking questions, and suggested reading lists in each chapter
Foreword: Celebrating Indigenous Food Systems: Restoring Indigenous Food Traditions, Knowledges, and Values for a Sustainable Future, by Harriet Kuhnlein
Chapter 1: Introduction, by Priscilla Settee and Shailesh Shukla
Section I—Concepts: Understanding the Context
Chapter 2: Reflections and Realities: Expressions of Food Sovereignty in the Fourth World, by Dawn Morrison
Chapter 3: Indigenous Philosophies and Perspectives on Traditional Food Systems Including Food as Cultural Identity: Maintaining Food Security in Elsipogtog First Nation, New Brunswick, by Elisa Levi
Chapter 4:Aki Miijim (Land Food) and the Sovereignty of the Asatiwisipe Anishinaabeg Boreal Forest Food System, by Agnieszka Pawlowska-Mainville
Chapter 5: “Food Will Be What Brings the People Together”: Constructing Counter-Narratives from the Perspective of Indigenous Foodways, by Leslie Dawson
Section II—Cases: Community-Based Action
Chapter 6: A Collection of Voices: Land-Based Leadership, Community Wellness, and Food Knowledge Revitalization of the WJOȽEȽP First Nation Garden Project, by Erynne M. Gilpin and Mary Hayes
Chapter 7: Cultivating Resurgence from the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Lens: A Case Study from Northern Manitoba, by Asfia Gulrukh Kamal and Ithinto Mechisowin Program Committee
Chapter 8: Rebuilding Cultural Identity and Indigenous Food Sovereignty with Indigenous Youth through Traditional Food Access and Skills in the City, by Tabitha Robin (Martens) and Jaime Cidro
Chapter 9: Learnings from a Food Security Action Group in Alexander First Nation, by Hara Nikolopoulos, Anna Farmer, David Dyck Fehderau, Joanna Campiou, and Noreen Willows
Chapter 10: Food Justice in the Inner City: Reflections from a Program of Public Health Nutrition Research in Saskatchewan, by Lise Kouri, Rachel Engler-Stringer, Tenille Thomson, and Melody Wood
Section III—Conversations: Commentary and Contemporary Issues
Chapter 11: Damming Food Sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples: A Case Study of Food Security at O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, by Shirley Thompson and Pepper Pritty
Chapter 12: The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, by Priscilla Settee
Chapter 13: Perspectives from Métis Harvesters in Manitoba on Concerns and Challenges to Sustaining Traditional Harvesting Practices and Knowledge: A Distinctions-Based Approach to Indigenous Food Sovereignty, by Brielle Beaudin-Reimer
Chapter 14: Socio-Historical Influences and Impacts on Indigenous Food Systems in Southwestern Ontario: The Experiences of Elder Women Living On- and Off-Reserve, by Hannah Tait Neufeld
Chapter 15: Synthesis: Revitalizing the Past, Nourishing the Present, and Feeding the Future, by Shailesh ShuklaandPriscilla Settee
Biography
Priscilla Settee is a member of Cumberland House Swampy Cree First Nations and Professor Emerita in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She is recognized nationally and internationally as an award-winning professor, writer, and global activist.
Shailesh Shukla is a Chair and an Associate Professor at the Department of Indigenous Studies, University of Winnipeg. His teaching and research interests include exploring and promoting Indigenous perspectives and knowledge systems to improve food security, sovereignty, well-being, and planetary health in Canada and globally.
“This collection is long overdue and much needed in the emerging field of critical food studies. To date, issues of Indigenous food systems have been severely under addressed in Canada. With contributions from researchers, practitioners, and community members, Indigenous Food Systems brings essential insight to the theory and practice of food systems and is part of the ongoing cross-cultural dialogue and development of new policy and practice.”
—Charles Z. Levkoe, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Food Systems, Lakehead University
“Indigenous food sovereignty is a pathway toward health and wellbeing for communities living within colonial structures creating economic dependency and insecurity. Indigenous Food Systems is not just another piece of academic literature describing the state of food insecurity in Canada; it is a collection of place-based solutions from diverse life projects emergent from Indigenous communities. This book is a celebration of the power of local food and community in dismantling capitalist food systems in order to achieve health and wellbeing.
The concepts, cases, and conversations presented provide critical guidance for restoring relationships, respect, and reciprocity in Canada’s food systems by dismantling the colonial and capitalist structures and processes that have eroded health and well-being in Indigenous communities.”
—Joseph LeBlanc, Director of the Indigenous Affairs Unit at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine
“You cannot say that you are sovereign if you cannot feed yourself. That’s the reality for us all, and particularly for Indigenous peoples, for whom food is something not just for the belly but also for the spirit and to nourish our dreams for the future. This book is about that story, from our Indigenous knowledge and understanding of our relationship to these sacred foods to the colonization and the decolonization of the times we enter now. Indigenous Food Systems is a powerful outline of relationships and links to understanding colonization, decolonization, and the liberation and honouring of our foods and ourselves.”
—Winona LaDuke, Executive Director, Honor the Earth
“Priscilla Settee and Shailesh Shukla have done a beautiful job in not only introducing Indigenous Food Systems in an academic format, but also in bridging formal research with reflection and conversation.”
—Excerpted from Kulak, V. (2020). “Book review: Indigenous Food Systems, Concepts, Cases and Conversations. Pricilla Settee and Shailesh Shukla, Eds. 2020. Canadian Scholars, Toronto.” Spiritual Botany Magazine, Issue 7.
—Verena Kulak, Doctoral Candidate, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph
“A timely addition to teaching and scholarship on Indigenous food systems. It contains numerous pedagogical features that will make it easy to use in the classroom. At the same time, it is an important contribution to collaborating with Indigenous peoples and their food systems in support of maintaining and reviving not only food systems but the sovereignty of Indigenous nations themselves.”
—Excerpted from Lowitt, Kristen (2020). “Book Review: Indigenous food systems: Concepts, cases and conversations. Priscilla Settee and Shailesh Shukla (Eds). Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2020, 284 pages.” Canadian Food Studies: Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 178-180.
—Kristen Lowitt is an Assistant Professor in the School of Environmental Studies at Queen’s University. Her research is directed towards working with communities to build just and sustainable food systems.
“With gentle critique of the agrarian bias of the global food sovereignty movement, this anthology will, of course, be of interest to Canadian Indigenous studies but also to allied scholars/practitioners/movements for climate resilience and food sustainability. With industrial food and meat systems contributing to at least one third of global heating, texts like this offer vital living ideas for regenerative food systems that symbiotically can reduce carbon emissions. All the authors were impressively attentive to relationships, respect, and reciprocity—with many proactively engaged with creative working groups, town, tribal, and even international initiatives for food justice.”
—Native American and Indigenous Studies Journal
Instructor Resources
Instructors adopting Indigenous Food Systems for their course will receive access to supplementary materials, including PowerPoint slides and a Test Bank.
Contact your rep to view a supplement sample or request a download code.
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