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Confronting Settler Colonialism in Food Movements Running head: CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD MOVEMENTS Confronting Settler Colonialism in Food Movements By Michaela Bohunicky A thesis presented to Lakehead University in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Health Sciences With specialization in Social-Ecological Systems, Sustainability, and Health Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, 2020 © Michaela Bohunicky 2020 CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD SYSTEMS Approval 2 CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD SYSTEMS Declaration of originality I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. 3 CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD SYSTEMS Abstract The dominant global capitalist food system is contributing significantly to social, political, ecological, and economic crises around the world. In response, food movements have emerged to challenge the legitimacy of corporate power, neoliberal trade policies, and the exploitation of people and natural resources. Despite important accomplishments, food movements have been criticized for reinforcing aspects of the dominant food system. This includes settler colonialism, a fundamental issue uniquely and intimately tied to food systems that has not received the attention it deserves in food movement scholarship or practice. While there is a small but growing body of literature that speaks to settler colonialism in contemporary food movements and a burgeoning scholarship on Indigenous food sovereignties, there are feW studies that examine practical examples of how settler colonialism is being actively addressed by and through food movement organizations. This research asks: How are food movement organizations addressing settler colonialism? Using a community-based methodology informed by settler colonial theory/studies, anti-colonial and decolonizing approaches, and food sovereignty, research partnerships were formed with tWo food systems netWorks, the Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy and Sustain: The Australian Food NetWork. Purposeful sampling Was used to conduct in-depth, semi-structured intervieWs with 23 settlers and 4 Indigenous participants in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, and Australia (Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia). Findings from thematic analysis are presented in three parts: 1) Settler inaction; 2) Problematic inclusion; and, 3) Productive engagements, organizational commitments, and long-term visions. Based on these findings, three areas are proposed where food movement organizations can more deeply engage in addressing settler colonialism: Situating our(settler)selves, (re)negotiating relationships, and making organizational commitment. Several broad methodological limitations of this research are considered, underscoring the need for additional place-based research that traces anti-colonial and decolonizing food movement processes and holds them up to the dreams and demands of specific Indigenous communities whose lands they occupy. 4 CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD SYSTEMS Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge funding contributions from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program, FLEdGE (Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged) and Mitacs. I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Charles Levkoe, for alWays making time for candid chats and last-minute feedback, challenging me in caring and constructive ways, and honouring my needs, skills and interests; My committee members, Dr. Lindsay GalWay and Dr. Rebecca Schiff, and examiner Dr. Max Haiven, for their generous time, support, and insight that deepened and enriched this work; My site contacts, Karen Kirk of the Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy, and Dr. Nick Rose and the team of Sustain: The Australian Food NetWork who graciously hosted me in Melbourne over almost three months and continue to lend support from across the globe; Jessica McLaughlin and The Indigenous Food Circle, to whom I am indebted for sharing so much wisdom, dedication, and leadership, and gifting space for Indigenous-settler alliances in Thunder Bay; My family of peers that make up the Sustainable Food Systems Lab for feeding my mind, body and soul on and off campus throughout the research process; And, most importantly, the participants, without whom this research would not exist; your insights have been an education in and of themselves and will live on through this work. 5 CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD SYSTEMS Table of Contents Approval 2 Declaration of originality 3 Abstract 4 Acknowledgements 5 Chapter 1: Introduction & Background 1 Positionality 3 Chapter 2: Literature Review 6 Settler Colonialism 6 Decolonization 9 Settler Colonialism and Food Systems 12 Indigenous Food Sovereignties 14 Settler Colonialism, Health, and Health Inequities 15 Conclusion 16 Chapter 3: Methodology 17 Anti-Colonial and Decolonizing Settler Research Methodologies 17 Community-Based Research 20 Canada – Northwestern Ontario 20 The Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy. 22 Australia – Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia 23 Methods 26 Data Sampling 26 Data Collection (in-depth, semi-structured interviews) 28 Data Analysis 30 Ethical Considerations and Methodological Limitations 33 Chapter 4: Findings 34 Part I: Settler Inaction 35 Motivations 36 Barriers – Fear 37 Barriers – Institutional 38 Place-Specific Findings 40 Part II: Problematic Inclusion 42 Collective Spaces 42 Institutional Practices 43 Place-Specific Findings 45 Part III: Productive Engagements, Organizational Commitments, and Long-Term Visions 46 (Re/Un)Learning 46 6 CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD SYSTEMS Relationships 47 Organizational Commitments and Looking Forward 49 Place-Specific Findings 51 Conclusion 52 Chapter 5: Discussion 54 Situating Our(settler)selves 55 (Re)Negotiating Relationships 56 Making Organizational Commitment 58 Conclusion 60 Chapter 6: Conclusion 62 Appendix A: Recruitment text 65 Appendix B: Information letter 66 Appendix C: Consent form 68 Appendix D: Interview guide 69 Appendix E: Timeline 72 Appendix F: Initial codes and themes 73 References 74 7 CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD SYSTEMS Chapter 1: Introduction & Background The dominant global capitalist food system is contributing significantly to social, political, ecological, and economic crises around the world (Lang & Heasman, 2015), intensifying issues of food insecurity, occupational hazards, diet-related diseases, biodiversity loss, antibiotic resistance, and pollution of soils, air, and water (De Schutter, 2017; IPES-Food, 2017). For example over 820 million people globally lack sufficient food (FAO, 2018); non- communicable diseases are now the leading cause of death (WHO, 2014); food systems contribute up to 30% of greenhouse gas emissions and 70% of freshwater use (Willett et al., 2019); and betWeen 2030 and 2050, climate change alone will cause 250,000 deaths per year (WHO, 2018). In response, food movements have emerged to challenge the legitimacy of corporate power, neoliberal trade policies, and the exploitation of people and natural resources (Holt-Giménez & Shattuck, 2011). Food movements can be described as “netWorks of netWorks”: collaborative efforts spanning across sectors, scales and places with a collective goal of achieving more socially and ecologically healthy, just, and sustainable food systems (Levkoe, 2014). Food movements are increasingly enacted through a broad range of coordinated groups including community-based non-profit organizations, economic development boards, healthcare bodies, local governments, food purveyors, emergency food providers, schools, environmental groups, labour unions, Indigenous communities, farming groups, academic institutions, urban and university youth, public health units, and local business (Levkoe & Wakefield, 2014). Food sovereignty in particular has become an important frameWork for food movements to envision and enact food system transformations by placing decision-making power in the hands of food producers and harvesters while challenging the logics of the dominant food system (Wittman et al., 2010). Food movements in the global north have had important accomplishments in critiquing, politicizing, and raising consciousness around inequities in the food system. Despite these accomplishments, they have been criticized for failing to instill transformative change toward social and ecological justice, and instead reinforcing aspects of the dominant food system such as consumerism, individualism, reductive and disjointed approaches, agrocentrism, patriarchy, classism, and white supremacy (Goodman et al., 2012; Levkoe, 2011). Critiques have been a vital part of the development and evolution of movements, pushing them closer to their aspirational goals. For example, critiques of urban agriculture have led to innovative projects that not only focus on food production but are explicitly concerned with dismantling structural inequities toward social change (Reynolds & Cohen, 2016). However, far less attention is paid to 1 CONFRONTING SETTLER COLONIALISM IN FOOD SYSTEMS settler colonialism, an underlying and compounding force in all of the above critiques. Settler colonialism is a land-based project that aims to systematically eliminate Indigenous Peoples in place of an invasive settler society (Wolfe, 2006). It is an ongoing system of naturalized institutional
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