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Paper short abstract:

This historical research on wild rice (manoomin) presents an analysis of the ways in which appropriation of native foods is the result of repeated acts of erasure and racism that weave a tapestry of gastrocolonialism.

Paper long abstract:

For centuries, the Anishinaabe people of North America have harvested the wild rice that grows in lakes and rivers. Wild rice has been, and continues to be, a central part of the Anishinaabe people’s culture, spirituality, economy and food system. Harvesting this food is one act in a relationship of reciprocity between people and their food, and taking care of this sacred plant as a community is important to the wellbeing of these Indigenous peoples.

Colonization and capitalism radically shifted people’s relationship with this food and their environment. Colonization pushed people off their land, relegating communal care-taking of this sacred plant-being to the reduced areas of reservation land. Capitalism created a market for this food, changing the relationship between people and wild rice from one of care-taking to money-making in a time in which Indigenous people were suffering from considerable economic hardship. Once there was a market for wild rice, breeding and genetic led to the domestication of the plant and the market for the wild-harvested food crashed, leaving Indigenous people again dispossessed, this time from the sources of income they had become accustomed to having. Today, the economic value of hand-harvested wild rice, now an expensive delicatessen, surpasses the cultural value of eating and honoring the food at home for many families out of necessity.

This historical research presents an analysis of the ways in which appropriation of native foods is the result of repeated acts of erasure and racism that weave a tapestry of gastrocolonialism.