Description
Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health, is edited by Devon Abbott Mihesuah, a Choctaw author and scholar; and Elizabeth Hoover, of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq ancestry. There is a foreword by Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) member of the White Earth Nation, who is an environmentalist, economist, author, and prominent Native American activist working to restore and preserve indigenous cultures and lands. Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States explores the meaning and importance of food sovereignty for Native peoples and asks whether and how it might be achieved and sustained. Centuries of colonization and other factors have disrupted Indigenous communities’ ability to control their own food systems. Unprecedented in its focus and scope, this collection addresses nearly every aspect of Indigenous food sovereignty, from revitalizing ancestral gardens and traditional ways of hunting, gathering, and seed saving to the difficult realities of racism, treaty abrogation, tribal sociopolitical factionalism, and the entrenched beliefs that processed foods are superior to traditional tribal fare. The contributors include scholar-activists in the fields of ethnobotany, history, anthropology, nutrition, insect ecology, biology, marine environmentalism, and federal Indian law, as well as indigenous seed savers and keepers, cooks, farmers, spearfishers, and community activists. After identifying the challenges involved in revitalizing and maintaining traditional food systems, these writers offer advice and encouragement to those concerned about tribal health, environmental destruction, loss of species habitat, and governmental food control.