Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on four interrelated axes in the use of food as a weapon in settler colonialism's quest to control and eradicate local (I)ndigenous populations in occupied Palestine and the Americas.

Paper long abstract:

Settler colonialism uses various techniques to occupy a people and their land. In this paper I argue in the occupation of Palestinian and Indigenous peoples’ in the Americas occupying states use food as a weapon is to sever (I)ndigenous populations though (1) dispossession and control of (I)ndigenous access to land, water, seeds, traditional foods and crops through the use of conservation initiatives, laws and markets; (2) extinction of the foods indigenous peoples rely on on the one hand (i.e. of traditional crops, fisheries and animal or hunting practices) leading to food systems collapse, starvation to control the indigenous population and physically sequester them (onto reserves or Bantustans) to remove them from the land. (3) (I)ndigenous populations are thus placed in dependency regimes with the colonial state either in the adopting modern techniques of agriculture or in food aid with very little nutrients, leading to communities' deterioration in their health and nutrition. Finally, settler colonialism (4) appropriates (I)ndigenous traditional knowledges, foods, seeds, language, culture while erasing any trace of these knowledges as (I)ndigenous histories, time and space of the populations' existence prior to European settlement. I draw parallels between the experiences between Palestinians and the Indigenous peoples across the Americas in how they define their right to self-determination and sovereignty over their food choices and traditional knowledges on the one hand, and by studying settler colonialism’s historical and ongoing attempts at using food as a weapon to succeed in Israel and the Americas' colonial projects on the other.