Food sovereignty as decolonization: some contributions from Indigenous movements to food system and development politics

• Published in: Agriculture and human values Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 431 - 444
• Main Authors: Grey, Sam, Patel, Raj
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.09.2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adaptability; Agricultural Economics; Agricultural production; Colonialism; Decolonization; Education; Ethics; Evolutionary Biology; Food; Food sovereignty; Food systems; friction; gender; Genetically engineered microorganisms; History; International trade; Native rights; North America; Peasants; Philosophy; Politics; Postcolonialism; Sovereignty; Studies; Trade agreements; transgenic plants; Veterinary Medicine/Veterinary Science; women; Womens rights; North America; Development; Food systems politics; Food sovereignty; Indigenous self-determination; Decolonization
• ISSN: 0889-048X; 1572-8366
• DOI: 10.1007/s10460-014-9548-9

The popularity of ‘food sovereignty’ to cover a range of positions, interventions, and struggles within the food system is testament, above all, to the term’s adaptability. Food sovereignty is centrally, though not exclusively, about groups of people making their own decisions about the food system—it is a way of talking about a theoretically-informed food systems practice. Since people are different, we should expect decisions about food sovereignty to be different in different contexts, albeit consonant with a core set of principles (including women’s rights, a shared opposition to genetically modified crops, and a demand for agriculture to be removed from current international trade agreements). In this paper we look at the analytical points of friction in applying ideas of food sovereignty within the context of Indigenous struggles in North America. This, we argue, helps to clarify one of the central themes in food sovereignty: that it is a continuation of anti-colonial struggles, even in post-colonial contexts. Such an examination has dividends both for scholars of food sovereignty and for those of Indigenous politics: by helping to problematize notions of food sovereignty and postcoloniality, but also by posing pointed questions around gender for Indigenous struggles.