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- Convenors:
-
Christina Hill
(Iowa State University)
Emma Herrighty (Iowa State University)
Rebecca Webster (University of Minnesota Duluth)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In the Midwestern US, land theft and forced assimilation disrupted traditional agricultural production of Native people. We explore historical and continuing mechanisms undergirding these disruptions and the importance of rejuvenating Indigenous agriculture for Native nations and on conservation.
Long Abstract:
Globally, industrial agriculture continues to displace Indigenous subsistence patterns, including agricultural/horticultural practices. In the Midwestern United States, land and resource theft, removal, and forced assimilation disrupted Indigenous agriculture. Ironically, Euro-Americans depended on Native growers for seeds bred to thrive in northern climates and land kept fertile through Indigenous practices. Despite these challenges, today Native peoples and their nations are rejuvenating their seeds and growing practices. Rebecca Webster (Oneida, Haudenosaunee) opens the panel by discussing the cultural, historical, scientific, and political reasons that saving seeds from three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) gardens is crucial to Haudenosaunee food sovereignty. Christina Gish Hill reflects on the historical political processes of settler colonialism in the U.S. that separated Native peoples from their lands and seeds, making food sovereignty an issue today. Angie Carter reflects on the role of the land grant university in land theft and its continued role in displacing Indigenous peoples from their lands and disrupting Indigenous food systems the world over through agricultural technology development. Emma Herrighty considers the responsibility of large seed holding institutions, like universities and seed banks, to participate in the rematriation process (returning Indigenous seeds to their home communities). We reflect on the centrality of Indigenous people to the food sovereignty movement. We relate the importance of Indigenous agriculture for healthy ecosystems and communities, noting that academic and research institutions have a responsibility to privilege Indigenous voices and recognize Indigenous rights when designing conservation plans to take responsibility for the damage they have and are causing.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 October, 2021, -Rebecca Webster (University of Minnesota Duluth)
Paper short abstract:
Told from the perspective of a Haudenosaunee woman, I discuss the cultural, historical, scientific, and political reasons why saving seeds from three sisters gardens is crucial to Haudenosaunee food sovereignty. Corn, beans, and squash seeds will help sustain minds and bodies of future generations
Paper long abstract:
Haudenosaunee history begins with our creation story. In that story, we learn about the seeds Sky Woman brought with her as she fell to the earth. These seeds would be activated with the death of her daughter. Corn, beans, squash, tobacco, strawberries, and potatoes would grow from her buried body. These plants would become sustenance for the human beings yet to be created. Throughout our tumultuous Haudenosaunee human history, corn, beans, and squash have remained by our side, serving as a constant in our daily and ceremonial lives. An understanding of basic science is necessary to understand the importance of properly saving seeds from these gardens, ensuring these foods continue to sustain the minds and bodies of future generations. They provide sustenance the way highly processed, nutritionally void foods cannot. Growing our foods on our own terms is a way to combat colonization, assimilation, and removal. Every time an indigenous person plants a seed, that is an act of resistance, an assertion of sovereignty, and a reclamation of identity. One Haudenosaunee community in particular, the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin, is taking a three prong approach to bolster food sovereignty through efforts of the tribal government,efforts of an agricultural cooperative, and efforts of family farmsteads.
Christina Hill (Iowa State University)
Paper short abstract:
The process of settler colonialism in the Midwestern U.S. separated Native people from their agricultural ways. Gish Hill details this history, noting how these same settlers depended on Native growers for seeds bred to thrive in northern climates and land kept fertile through Indigenous practices.
Paper long abstract:
The historical political processes of settler colonialism in the Midwestern U.S., including land theft, forced removal, establishment of reservations, and forced assimilation, separated Native people from their traditional agricultural practices. Gish Hill details this history, noting how the separation from land and resources through removal, treaty boundaries, and finally reservation, prohibited Native peoples from farming in their traditional patterns. As Native growers struggled to hold on to these practices and continue to grow their traditional seeds, they faced a new threat--forced assimilation. Government agents provided Native people who farmed using Euro-American techniques with more resources. They encouraged men to farm, and as a result, separated women from their traditional agricultural knowledge. Furthermore, with the creation of boarding schools, children were separated from their families. This prevented children from taking the opportunity to learn traditional agricultural practices, as well as to learn traditional knowledge that is passed through the generations as part of growing practices. In these schools, Native children were instead taught Euro-American farming practices. This paper ends by detailing the irony of these efforts to disrupt Native agriculture. Through the appropriation of seeds bred by Native growers to thrive in northern climates and land kept fertile through Indigenous practices, these settlers came to profit off of Native knowledge and labor through their newly established farms.
Angie Carter (Michigan Technological University)
Paper short abstract:
Land grant universities claim to engage in science for the public good even as their historical and contemporary research agendas threaten food sovereignty. Carter analyzes how food sovereignty activists actively resist agricolonialism and demand accountability in agricultural development projects.
Paper long abstract:
Land grant universities, established by United States federal policy through the Morill Acts of 1862 and 1890, purport to provide science for the public good and celebrate a history of popular agricultural education. Recent reporting from High Country News investigative reporters Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone has inspired a critical re-examination of the land grant university’s complicity in Indigenous genocide in the US. These universities continue to profit from their historical land theft while expanding their colonial practices of disruption and co-optation of Indigenous food systems abroad. Such projects are examples of the land grant university’s continued engagement in colonial agricultural expansion under the guise of development. I analyze two such projects that were actively contested in global campaigns by food sovereignty social movement activists. Activists challenged researchers’ and university leaders’ claims of increased equity, food security, and sustainability in agricultural production while highlighting the projects’ threats to biodiversity, Indigenous foodways, and community health.The prioritization of corporate-controlled knowledge and an increased reliance upon chemical-dependent systems jeopardizes food sovereignty at local and global scales. Activists’ demands for accountability in agricultural research emphasize the importance of reparations and accountability. A food sovereignty approach to agricultural development reframes not only what counts as agriculture but also who counts in agriculture, and may inspire new mandates beyond the land grant mission.
Emma Herrighty (Iowa State University)
Paper short abstract:
Since first contact, Native American seed keepers have witnessed the displacement of culturally significant plant varieties. Herrighty discusses the seed rematriation movement as a response to this appropriation, detailing the responsibility of non-Native institutions to engage within this network.
Paper long abstract:
In the intervening generations since first contact, Native American crop varieties have been displaced from the gardening systems in which they were developed. While seeds have left communities through various avenues, some by trade and gifting and others through theft and appropriation, the reality remains that today, Indigenous growers have limited access to their ancestral varieties. Emma Herrighty discusses the rising movement of seed rematriation, which seeks to identify Indigenous seeds and return them to the communities of their origin. Rallied by combined efforts for improving seed and food sovereignty, Native Nations are reclaiming culturally significant seeds as necessary and valued participants in the process of revitalizing traditional growing practices. More often than not, however, the seeds identified for rematriation reside within the collections of non-Native institutions such as genebanks, seed companies, and museum archives. Native seed keepers and growers are working closely with some of these actors to return seeds back into the hands and soils of communities. While large-scale rematriation projects like those pioneered by Seed Savers Exchange of Decorah, Iowa, have had great impact thus far, such occurrences are rare in the larger network of seed-holding institutions. Similar partnerships have yet to be undertaken by other actors with Indigenous seed collections. Herrighty therefore considers the increasing opportunities and responsibilities of these institutions to participate within this decolonization movement. As the process of seed rematriation gains greater traction within Indigenous seed sovereignty work, joint efforts between seed-holding institutions and Native communities will be vital to long-term success.