Decolonizing Diet

Diet related diseases currently threaten the survival of Indigenous people and culture. Many innovative individuals from diverse Indigenous nations combat the threat that obesity and diabetes pose by a return to food ways practiced by Indigenous people prior to the arrival of Europeans and the replacement of indigenous foods with the colonial diet. The resurrection of indigenous food ways impacts health and wholeness, promotes cultural identity, and creates jobs in traditional food production which strengthens local food systems, economies and tribal self-sufficiency. This paper calls attention to the ongoing colonization that occurs through national food assistance programs and diet recommendations that are based on European physiology and food preferences, which ignores indigenous knowledge about personal health and the importance of the relationships between indigenous people and the food resources available on their land. My goals for this project include highlighting the successful approaches of indigenous responses to the threat of diet related disease, while discussing how such programs and projects in effect are acts of decolonization and indigenization transforming reservations from spaces of colonial confinement to indigenous spaces in which indigenous life ways are lived and perpetuated. Using literature, websites, interviews and my own personal work in the field of food sovereignty, I attempt to show the connection between indigenous food ways and national self-determination.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Naramore, Raven Aurora

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kindscher, Kelly

• Native American studies
• Cultural anthropology
• Sustainability
• Cutural Revitalization
• Decolonization
• Food Sovereignty
• Indigenization

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:12265

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/37584