The scholarship of food and foodways has long failed at the same turn as all cultural fields, in not including voices of and about indigeneity. Books such as Indigenous Food Systems are changing that norm, albeit too slowly. This edited volume, containing thirteen analytical chapters plus an introduction and synthesizing conclusion by the editors, brings a multiplicity of viewpoints, voices, and academic disciplines to the study of food and cultural meanings, primarily in what is now called western Canada.
The Indigenous groups in North America existed long before lines demarcating Canada from the US, or Manitoba from Saskatchewan. Political, academic, and public discourses about indigeneity in Canada and the US are different in significant ways. Thus, indigeneity is in some ways independent from, and in others dependent on, current variations in government policy and the vagaries of academia. The western Canadian focus of Indigenous Food Systems is a strength. Indeed, the editors stress that, “the food we eat must be understood within the current political climate, including how it is produced and where the business of agriculture is taking us” (7). Scaling down avoids the blending of individual groups into a mass, undifferentiated, othering monolith, and allows more nuance and cultural specificity. Because many of the chapters directly address government policies and local norms, leaning to the side of geographic specificity works strongly in the book’s favor. Even within that smaller scale, the editors did good work to find authors exploring a range of topics, from rural food sovereignty to urban nutrition and health.
The first section of the book, subtitled Concepts, includes chapters focusing on big-picture thinking and framing of Indigenous foodways in Canada, which then sets up the middle section, Cases, and the last, Conversations. There is very little to quibble with in this book, but the separation of the latter two sections seems at times artificial, as both contain case studies and deep-dive analyses. There is something to be said for the rhythm of having three sections and the poetry of their titles’ alliteration, though, and if that critique is the worst that can be said about a book, it probably speaks to the value of the scholarship and insight within it.
The first analytical chapter, “Reflections and Realities,” uses food sovereignty to examine power dynamics between Indigenous groups and layers of Canadian government. Canada’s high standards of living (as measured on a global scale) belie the “fourth world” status of many Indigenous people who live in the country. The second chapter, “Indigenous Philosophies and Perspectives on Traditional Food Systems Including Food as Cultural Identity,” explores how food systems can make and maintain a community, and also stresses that ideas can and should become actions. The next chapter, “Aki Miijim (Land Food) and the Sovereignty of the Asatiwisipe Anishinaabeg Boreal Forest Food System,” digs deep into the local episteme of food for the Poplar River First Nation. Less a case study than an exploration of the complexities inherent in trying to understand someone else’s idea of a seemingly simple concept like “food,” this chapter makes clear how meaning is made in deeper and more intricate ways than we often let ourselves be aware of. Chapter 5, “’Food Will Be What Brings the People Together’,” similarly looks at food as a lens to something larger, by analyzing how Indigenous foodways understood through colonial ways of knowing are still colonized. To understand Indigenous foodways through Indigenous epistemologies of food requires that we transcend to another level.
The Cases section starts with chapter 6, “A Collection of Voices,” which examines the WJOLELP Tsartlip First Nation Garden Project as an example of an Indigenous method of sustaining and teaching foodways. Chapter 7, “Cultivating Resurgence from the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Lens,” explores the connection between food sovereignty and the ability to expand and solidify cultural capital and power. In chapter 8, “Rebuilding Cultural Identity,” that idea is pushed further, by looking at the connection between food sovereignty and the development of Indigenous identity among young people in a workshop series in Winnipeg. Chapter 9, “Learnings from a Food Security Action Group in Alexander First Nation,” examines another community workshop series that emphasizes the connection between ideas and actions. The last chapter in the middle section, “Food Justice in the Inner City,” keeps the focus on the urban context by understanding the multiple forms of resilience involved in maintaining foodways in a colonized, urban setting.
The final section, Conversations, begins with another case study, “Damming Food Sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples,” this time through a more sociological review of food systems and their impacts on food security. The next chapter, “The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Food Sovereignty,” makes the dual points that climate change impacts Indigenous communities disproportionately, and that Indigenous epistemologies have long paid attention to climate change, providing additional insights into the interwoven issues of climate change and food security. Chapter 13, “Perspectives from Métis Harvesters in Manitoba,” presents the cultural complexities of Métis land use and food harvesting as a complement to discussions of the practices of First Nations and Inuit Peoples in Canada. The last analytical chapter in the book, “Socio-Historical Influences and Impacts on Indigenous Food Systems in Southwestern Ontario,” returns in some ways to the beginning of the book, with a big-picture review of influences, from the macro- to the micro-range, on women’s foodways and experiences in Ontario.
The variety of backgrounds, ancestries, viewpoints, and disciplines of the authors in this volume provides some of the value of Indigenous Food Systems, but the depth and insight the authors bring from their own vantage points to their various subjects increase that value immensely. The editors are due much respect as well, not just for bringing these authors together. Priscilla Settee and Shailesh Shukla have synthesized these chapters into a coherent and eminently teachable book by including key terms, learning objectives, critical questions, and other such tools. The content, presentation, and organization of this book make it suitable for scholars and classrooms alike.
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[Review length: 1008 words • Review posted on January 28, 2021]