NOURISHING LAND: HEALTH EXPERIENCES OF FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

by
Katya Korol-O’Dwyer
B. Arts. Sc. McMaster University, 2020

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF SCIENCE
IN
INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
May 2022
© Katya Korol-O’Dwyer, 2022

Abstract
Indigenous food sovereignty— a living reality prior to colonization, which violently disrupted
Indigenous food systems—is characterized by Indigenous peoples’ self-determination in
controlling their food systems and culturally informed foods practices. Directly related to
ongoing coloniality, food insecurity is central to the disproportionately high burdens of poor
health affecting Indigenous peoples. By exploring the health-related experiences of food
sovereignty and Indigenous food sovereignty leaders living in northern BC, this project asks
both: How does engaging in food sovereign practices affect peoples’ health? What are the factors
that foster (or limit) food sovereignty practices? Being sensitive to past and ongoing colonial and
paternalistic research approaches, this research enacts a community-informed ethos, anchored in
community-based participatory research (CBPR) processes, wherein research is conducted with
and for those involved. This research draws on qualitative methods, including semi-structured
(virtual) interviews with community members and knowledge holders, including diverse food
sovereignty and Indigenous food sovereignty champions. Champions are involved in various
capacities, including direction of research design, engaging in interviews, and informing research
outputs. Addressing gaps in the literature, this research documents holistic health experiences of
food sovereignty and Indigenous food sovereignty leaders in northern BC. By highlighting
experiences faced by those enacting food sovereignty practices, this research offers a
counterview to existing bodies of food and health-related research and literature that rely
predominantly on quantitative food security metrics. This project’s findings contribute to a
growing body of scholarship documenting food sovereignty praxis: the work thus has the
potential to inform policy that helps to support the resilience and self-determination of those
doing food sovereignty and Indigenous food sovereignty.

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, thank you to my Mum for being my role model, for all of the meals
made with love, and for instilling in me a value for good food from a young age. I couldn’t have
done this project without your unwavering support and guidance. Thank you to my brother, Finn,
for helping me with edits, technical issues, for being a soundboard and for providing me with
comedic relief in times that I needed it most. Thank you to my maternal grandparents, Sonia and
Bob Korol for caring for me through food and showing me its healing power through example.
Thanks to my dog, Sasha, who is the perfect antidote to the stresses of academia and who reminds
me of how simple life can be.
Thank you to my inspiring and brilliant committee members— to Jessie King for teaching
me to be a humble learner and the importance of fostering authentic relationships. I hope to
someday embody the patience, compassion, and reflexivity that you teach with. Thank you to Zoe
Meletis, for encouraging me from the beginning to think critically about questions around food,
justice, ecology and health, for the extra time you dedicated to me during our class together and
for connecting me with food-related events and fellow graduate students.
I’d like to extend a special thanks to my supervisors, to Sarah de Leeuw for showing me
the art of balancing humility and confidence, for encouraging me to stay grounded even when
faced with the academic ‘trap,’ and for your invaluable and consistent support professionally and
personally. Thank you very much also to Margot Parkes for inspiring me to grapple with
complexity, for challenging me to make time to reflect and adapt, for providing me with
innumerable learning opportunities and for reminding me of the unique and special opportunities
that come with being a graduate student.
Thank you to my good friends in the HARC and ECHO research teams, for being inspiring,
passionate and kind-hearted individuals. Your insights, perspectives and support has been a
highlight of this project. I’m especially thankful to Monika Krzywania and Christine Anonuevo
for sharing your food sovereignty experiences and wisdom with me, for your mentorship and
mostly for your friendship.
Last but certainly not least, I’d like to extend an enormous thanks to all of the involved
food sovereignty champions for generously sharing your stories, thoughts, and reflections with
me and for dedicating your precious time to support and contribute to this project. Thank you for

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bringing this project to life and for your courage and dedication to pursuing food sovereignty in
the name of justice, sustainability, health and collective well-being.

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Table of Contents
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………….i
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………….ii
Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………iv
List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………………...viii
CHAPTER 1: Introduction………………………………………………………………….......1
1.1 Research Context………………………………………………………………….......1
1.2 Research Questions and Aims…………………………………………………….......5
1.3 Positionality.……………………………………………...……………………….......9
CHAPTER 2: Background, Review of Written Literatures, Spoken Voices and Oral
Knowledges ……………………………………………………………………………………..15
2.1 Historical Context……………………………………………………………………15
2.2 Changing Food Discourse……………………………………………………………20
2.2.1. Food Security……………………………………………………………...21
2.2.2. Alternative Consumption Narratives………………………………...........22
2.2.3 Food Sovereignty………………………………..........................................24
2.2.4. Indigenous Food Sovereignty...………………………………...................26

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2.3. Cases and Reflections...………………………………..............................................31
2.3.1. Revitalization, Resurgence and Self-Determination....................................32
2.3.2. Land and Community…………………………………………………......32
2.3.3. Health and Well-being…………………………………...……………......34
2.4 Community Engagement …………………………………………............................37
2.5 Reflections and summaries to Background, Review of Written Literatures, Spoken
Voices and Oral Knowledges……………………………………………………….……42

CHAPTER 3: Methodological Influences, Research Design and
Methods………………………………………………………………………………………….45
3.1 Methodological Influences………………………..………………………………….45
3.1.1 Interdisciplinary Methodological Lens.........................................................47
3.1.2 Strength-based Methodological Influence……………................................49
3.1.3 De-colonial and Anti-oppressive Methodological Influences......................50
3.2 Research Design……………………………………………………………………...54
3.2.1 Community-based Participatory Research…………………………….…...54
3.3 Methods………………………………………………………..……………………..59

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3.3.1 Conversational Interviews ………………………………………..……….61
3.3.2 Data Analysis……………………………………..………………………..63
3.4 Ethical Considerations ………………………………….…………………………...65
CHAPTER 4: Findings and Discussion ……………………………………………………....70
4.1 About the Knowledge Holders ……………………………………………………...70
4.2 Themes ……………………….. ……………………………...……………………..73
4.2.1 Theme 1: Neoliberal Capitalism…………..……………………………….74
4.2.2 Theme 2: Colonialism ……………….………………….…………..……..87
4.2.3 Theme 3: Holistic Health……...………………….…………..……………93
4.2.4 Theme 4: Intergenerational Well-being….……..…..………………….…105
4.2.5 Theme 5: Relationships………………….…………..…………………....109
4.3 Emerging Finding: Northern, Rural and Remote BC Barriers……………………..112
4.4 Conclusion to Findings and Discussion ………………………….………………...117
CHAPTER 5: Synthesis and Conclusion…………………………………………………….118
5.1 Synthesis of Findings.…………. ………………………………………….……….118
5.2 Knowledge Exchange.…………. ……………………………………...……..…....122

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5.3 Personal Reflections.…………. ………………………………………….………...123
5.4 Project Limitations and Research Lessons ……………...……………….………...126
5.5 Suggestions for Future Research in the Field………………………………………129
5.6 Summary...………………………………………………………………………….131
References………………….. ………………………………………………………………….132
Appendix 1. ……………….. …………………………………………………………………..147
Appendix 2. ……………….. …………………………………………………………………..148
Appendix 3. ……………….. …………………………………………………………………..149
Appendix 4……………….. ……………………………………………………………………150

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List of Tables
Table 1

Examples of Community Experts and their Interests in the Research ...………...40

Table 2

Knowledge Holder Identification………………………………………………..64

Table 3

Knowledge Holder Demographic ……………………………………………….72

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CHAPTER 1: Introduction
This master’s thesis explores and reflects upon the stories of peoples pursuing food
sovereignty in so-called1 northern British Columbia (BC). I embarked on this study with the
intention of better understanding connections between health and food sovereignty practices. I
also wanted to understand factors that influence people’s ability to pursue food sovereignty in
this place I now call home. Growing out of a deep-seated interest in food and health, this
master’s project represents one point in my life-long commitment to learning about food and
health. I hope this project will inform the work of future researchers and practitioners in northern
BC and that it might contribute to fostering a collective awareness of the complex conditions
affecting the health and food sovereign pursuits of people living in these geographies. This
chapter outlines the relevance and significance of this research as well as the academic,
sociopolitical and geographic context in which this project took place.

1.1 Research Context
Food insecurity is a pressing issue in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2020), projected to
worsen due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated financial burdens (Pérez‐Escamilla et
al., 2020). Compared to urban and settler populations, northern and Indigenous communities
experience the highest rates of food insecurity in the country (Canadian Academies, 2014). A BC
First Nations regional health survey conducted between the years 2008-2010 classified 43.5% of

I use the term ‘so-called’ when referring to colonial territory names in an effort to challenge power asymmetries
embedded in language. I use 'so-called’ for reasons that are similar to those for acknowledging traditional territory—
I do so in effort to show respect and gratitude to be working in this place and with the intention to engage in ‘good
relations’ (Auger, 2021). With these recognitions and intentions withstanding, in order to be repetitive, I have not
written ‘so-called’ throughout the rest of this document.
1

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First Nations households as food secure, 37.7% as moderately food insecure, and 18.8% as
severely food insecure (First Nations Health Authority, 2012). Further, scholars predict that rates
of food insecurity among Indigenous communities are underestimated given the tendency for
national food surveys to exclude on-reserve populations (Delormier & Marquis, 2019). Food
insecurity can be understood simply: not having access to adequate food quality or quantity
(Government of Canada, 2020). According to the First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment
Study (2019), 77% of First Nations people felt that they did not have access to traditional and
culturally relevant foods. As such, it can be seen that Indigenous communities experience higher
rates of food insecurity as measured by Western indices, but also face additional food
insecurities from barriers to participate in Indigenous food systems through privileging ancient
knowledge systems that have been transmitted intergenerationally (Delormias & Marquis, 2018).
It is worth noting that the capitalization of Lands acknowledges them as sovereign entities in the
context of Indigenous governance and self-determination (Gilpin & Hayes, 2020). In an effort to
resist colonial logic regarding Land as private property, I have capitalized ‘Land’ throughout this
thesis when referring Land as an animate being, as it has been positioned ontologically by many
non-settler scholars and activists (Coté, 2016; Daigle, 2019; Whyte, 2015).
Food insecurity data highlight the ways in which the current food system is unequally
serving certain people, while failing to meet the needs of some. Prior to colonization, which
violently disrupted (and continues to disrupt) Indigenous food systems (Redvers et al., 2020;
Russell & Parkes, 2018), Indigenous food sovereignty— encompassing Indigenous peoples’ selfdetermination in controlling their food systems and engaging in culturally appropriate foods
practices (Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, n.d.)— was a ‘living reality’ (Cidro
et al., 2015). Historical accounts document many Indigenous communities as sufficiently food

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secure, thriving from diets which were healthy and sustainable (Delormier & Marquis, 2019;
McLaughlin et al., 2020). Directly related to coloniality, food insecurity is central to the one of
the burdens of poor health that Indigenous peoples face (Castleden et al., 2012; Greenwood et
al., 2015; Richmond et al., 2021). Indeed, Indigenous-informed scholarship and political ecology
highlight the inseparability of food, culture, health and the larger systemic contexts in which
these are enacted, barred and enlivened (Agyemen et al., 2014; Cidro et al., 2015).
The intrinsic and intricate connections between food and health is concretely illustrated
through the superior health experienced by Indigenous communities reliant on traditional diets
with higher nutrient density (simply meaning food with more nutrients per calorie). Further,
given that food is a product of the Land and Watersheds with which humans coexist, there is a
direct connection between human health and the health of the planet. This connection can be
understood through the “microbial microcosm” (Redvers et al., 2020, p.6) concept wherein the
human microbiome (micro) is seen as one which inherently contributes to a larger (macro) biome
of the planet. The microbial microcosm concept sees microbial communities on the micro and
macro scale as inherently interdependent, that is without the other, one cannot be resilient and
healthy (Redvers et al., 2020).
Despite facing numerous health-threatening challenges associated with violent
colonization and ongoing colonial policies, Indigenous peoples from all over the world embody
and demonstrate resilience and strength through championing food sovereignty and advocating
for food systems change, specifically for self-determined food systems (La Via Campesina,
2017; Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, n.d.). The fundamental right to
Indigenous Food Sovereignty is recognized by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples through articles 20, 24, 25, 26, and 29 (United Nations Declaration on the

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Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2008), which BC implemented as Bill-41 in 2019. In spite of this
localized and international recognition, Indigenous people across Canada continue to face
incredible systemic barriers to exercising their right to Indigenous food sovereignty.
One contemporary example of Indigenous food sovereignty (as it is recognized by the
aforementioned UNDRIP articles) being disrespected and disrupted comes in the form of recent
violent and racist protests against the moderate livelihood fishery. The moderate livelihood
fishery, as launched by Sipekne’katik First Nation on unceded Mi’kmaq territory (Editorial
Board, 2020), is an expression of Indigenous food sovereignty. Despite being violently attacked
by settler (mostly white) fishermen (it was mostly men), and despite not being supported or
protected by colonial law enforcement (McKinley & McKeen, 2020), Mi’kmaq fishers
exemplify their resilience and strength through continuing to fish and defending their cultural
foodways and self-determined food practices. Unfortunately, dynamics such as this where
Canadian law enforcement disrespects and fails to recognize Indigenous rights to moderate
livelihoods are not new. As was the case with the Marshal decision, lawmakers have perpetually
subject Indigenous people to settler-imposed regulations that attempt to restrict Indigenous food
practices and undermine community management and food sovereignty (McMillan & Prosper,
2016). Given that we all need incomes, Indigenous rights to moderate livelihoods must be
respected as part of efforts to work towards reconciliation and so as to not perpetuate racist ways
of thinking where Indigenous cultures are ‘frozen’ in time. It is for this reason that Samoan
scholar, Mallon (2010) provides a critique on ‘tradition’ given that the term “pre-supposes that
culture and society can be defined a whole, as a functioning well-ordered system which remains
constant over time.” (p.365).
Scholars identify food sovereignty as a valuable focus of health-related research and

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practice (Richmond et al., 2021; Russell & Parkes, 2018). Canada-specific research on food
sovereignty, however, has predominantly occurred in Manitoba (Cidro et al., 2015 & Kamal et
al., 2015), Ontario (Daigle, 2019 & Levkoe et al., 2019) or southern BC contexts (Mundel &
Chapman, 2010). To provide a counterbalance to the existing body of research, which mostly
focuses on food sovereignty in urban and southern geographies, my research project focused on
the health experiences of settler and Indigenous food sovereignty leaders in northern BC. By
focussing on health, or by using ‘health’ as the primary lens around which my research is
focused, this project aims to bring attention to the health-barriers that Indigenous and northern
communities face, barriers that extend into inequitable access to health care services, including
barriers to self-determined food practices. This research is based on the premise that highlighting
barriers and health-impacts experienced by those practicing food sovereignty in northern BC
contributes a unique and much needed area of focus to the growing body of food sovereignty
literature.

1.2 Research Questions and Aims
With this in mind, my research explores the holistic health accounts of aiming for food
sovereignty, and contributions of Indigenous food sovereignty leaders2 in northern BC.
Specifically, this research explored the health-related experiences of food sovereignty leaders

2

Food sovereignty and Indigenous food sovereignty leaders/champions were identified through snowball sampling,
a process effective at locating ‘key informants’ by speaking with ‘well-situated people’ (Patton, 2015). Leaders were
suggested by community members who are knowledgeable about food sovereignty and Indigenous food sovereignty
initiatives happening in northern BC.

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and advocates living in northern British Columbia. The two research questions that guided this
research are:
1) How does engaging in food sovereignty processes affect peoples’ health in
northern British Columbia? and
2) What are the sociopolitical, environmental and cultural factors that foster (or
limit) peoples’ food sovereignty practices?
Rather than attending to neoliberal framings of health (please see Chapter 2, p.13 for a historical
overview of neoliberalism), which I explore below, this research sought to privilege the holistic
health experiences of those engaging with food sovereignty. To do this, ‘health’ was understood
not only in the context of ‘social determinants’ but also in reference to access and ability to
nurture relationships with Land, community, and non-human kin. In line with this thinking, this
research understands neoliberal capitalism and settler colonialism as determinants of Indigenous
peoples’ health (Greenwood et al., 2018; Ray et al., 2019). Given health’s context-dependent and
holistic nature, my understandings of health were informed and defined by the diverse and
unique health-related experiences, perceptions and knowledge held by involved knowledge
holders’3. Thus, in addition to the overall guiding questions (see again above), my specific
research aims were to:

3

For anonymized examples of community experts that I reached out to and their interests in the research please see
Table 1 (p. 20).

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a). Explore food sovereignty leaders’ experiences of health in relation to food sovereignty in
northern BC,

b) Highlight challenges that community members face when engaging with food
sovereignty in this place,

c) Examine ways that northern and Indigenous BC communities can be better supported in
pursuing food sovereignty.
Indigenous scholars and activists have suggested the term ‘food sovereignty’ needs to be
‘Indigenized’ to move beyond a rights-based discourse (Coté, 2016; Working Group on
Indigenous Food Sovereignty, n.d.). These scholars differentiate between food sovereignty and
Indigenous food sovereignty, suggesting that the latter emphasizes self-determination and the
revitalization of ancestral food practices. For two reasons, however, my research does not focus
exclusively on Indigenous food sovereignty leaders. Firstly, I believe that hearing settler
experiences can highlight shared and varied barriers faced by settlers and Indigenous people
doing food sovereignty work in northern BC. Secondly, I believe including settlers in this
research will allow for exchange opportunities that will highlight ways in which settlers can best
be supportive to Indigenous communities in self-determined ways. I thus use the term ‘food
sovereignty’ when referring to all involved knowledge holders, Indigenous or settler, but I will
use ‘Indigenous food sovereignty’ when referring specifically to an Indigenous food sovereignty
champion. This research aspired to operationalize action research (Patton, 2014). I sought to
understand and address the specific barriers to food sovereignty in northern and Indigenous
communities. I was attentive to theories of power, oppression and space in this research, which

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scholar-activists identify as a necessary focus for action-oriented food scholarship (Hammelman,
2020). This included recognizing that research itself is a political process, and that researchers
(particularly those in privileged positions like myself) must work to dismantle inequitable
relationships, including those between the academy and community partners.
Scholars and activists advocate not only for a move beyond settler-defined ‘food security’
in favour of Indigenous food sovereignty (Cidro et al., 2015), but also for a deeper analysis of
discourses of ‘sovereignty’ in food sovereignty movements (Coté, 2016 & Kepkiewicz, L., &
Dale, B., 2019). These critiques stem from growing recognitions that colonialism and neoliberal
capitalism promote differing ontologies of health, Land, and relationships to place. Colonialism
refers to “the government of a place…that is at a distance from the… colonial power and to the
associated movement and settlement of people from the colonial power…through the process of
colonisation (McDowell & Sharp, 2014). Related to but distinct from colonialism, neoliberal
capitalism refers to governments deregulating capital and promoting the ‘free market,’
dismantling government-funded social supports and is often associated with workplace cultures
of hyper-competitiveness (Kotz, 2009).
These ontological divergences can limit the ability of non-Indigenous scholars, activists
and policymakers to effectively support Indigenous food sovereignty and ultimately threatens the
relationality inherent in Indigenous food sovereignty practice. Scholars such as Daigle (2019)
and Agyeman & McEntee (2014) argue that, in order to effectively promote social justice and
protect Indigenous Land-based relationships, food sovereignty movements must overtly
challenge oppressive settler colonial and neoliberal capitalist structures. Thus, it was crucial in
my research to foreground the experiences of those pursuing food sovereignty and Indigenous
food sovereignty and to focus on their narratives in an effort to challenge the discourses put forth

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by dominant oppressive structures, such as academic institutions, which have historically erased
and obfuscated Indigenous knowledges (de Leeuw & Hunt, 2018; Hunt, 2014; Todd, 2016). My
research seeks to contribute to ongoing efforts to dismantle existing knowledge hierarchies.
Building on the work of others (Cidro et al., 2018; Daigle, 2019; Kamel et al., 2015), the results
and analyses I present here aim to understand and further validate lived experiences of food
sovereignty as valuable knowledges worthy of space and respect in academic and policy
discussions.

1.3 Positionality
This work is inspired by personal experiences, including a family member using food as
part of his healing process in the face of a chronic disease diagnosis and my own therapeutic
experience working on organic farms (WOOFing) and food sovereignty during time spent in
Aotearoa, New Zealand. These experiences led me to food-related research questions in my
undergraduate and graduate studies. In both cases, I became aware of the vast sociocultural
economic inequities that facilitate food sovereignty endeavours of privileged, white settler folks
(like myself and my family) while at the same time limiting the food sovereignty pursuits of
others. I realized this disparity is particularly apparent in the context of land dispossession and
other oppressive colonial pursuits that continually assault Indigenous peoples’ rights, culture,
well-being and self-determination (Daigle, 2019).
I write this research as non-Indigenous woman with mixed settler ancestry seeking to do
research with and for Indigenous communities. Being a newcomer to the diverse territories of
northern BC, where I now live, play and seek to do this research, I often question my own
legitimacy in doing this work. Engaging with spoken and written Indigenous voices has been,

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and will continue to be, crucial in helping me navigate these complicated and necessary
questions. Given that a more inclusive citational practice alone is not enough to combat colonial,
hetero-patriarchal, racist structures, engaging in a reflective practice is another tangible way in
which this research is influenced by de-colonial methodology. Scholars such as Kovach (2010)
stress the importance that researchers situate themselves within worldview or paradigm. Having
actively positioned myself and my worldview (particularly with respect to food, justice,
sustainability and health) in all facets of this research (in conversations with knowledge holders,
in written work associated with this project, in personal journal reflections), has been part of my
effort to engage in a reflective praxis. Further than naming one’s positionality though, Hunt
(2014) explains that non-Indigenous researchers interested in engaging with Indigenous
ontologies may step away from the position as ‘expert’ and rather step into discomfort that
comes with bearing witness as a listener. For this reason, I use words like ‘champion’ and
‘leader’ when referring to the knowledge holders and informants who contributed to this study.
Rather than referring to these people as ‘participants,’ I felt compelled to speak about them in a
way that credits their position as knowledgeable experts in food sovereignty practices in northern
BC and my position as a humble learner in these spaces. It is worth noting that knowledge
holders became involved in this project to varying degrees given personal circumstances and
their desired level of engagement in the project. While some simply participated in the
community-engagement phase, others participated in conversational interviews and were more
involved in shaping the project’s direction. The language around such knowledge holders thus
evolved such that some were referred to simply as ‘informants,’ while others are considered
knowledge holders and partners due to their increased involvement.
A reflective praxis not only necessitates an inward reflection (towards oneself) but also

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outward (toward the Lands and territories on which we work, live and play) (Simpson, 2014).
This is especially necessary when exploring questions around food, health and well-being.
According to Simpson (2014), responsible relationships with Land carried out in a Nishnaabeg
way—wherein Land and other entities are seen as ‘teacher,’— are inextricably connected to
love, compassion, nourishment and sustainability (well-being) through hunt and harvest.
Simpson writes:
We cannot just think, write or imagine our way to a decolonized future. Answers on how
to re-build and how to resurge are therefore derived from a web of consensual
relationships that is infused with movement (kinetic) through lived experience and
embodiment. Intellectual knowledge is not enough on its own. Neither is spiritual
knowledge or emotional knowledge. All kinds of knowledge are important and necessary
in a communal and emergent balance. (Simpson, 2014, p.16).
In other words, without reflecting on my own accountability to the Land on which I live and
work and play, I am limited in my ability to engage with de-colonial research with people
involved with Land-based food sovereignty work. Therefore, part of my effort to operationalize a
holistic reflective practice has been to listen to those who have lived responsibly with human and
non-human kin on this Land. This listening has helped me to engage in ongoing negotiations
with myself and with my community about how I am grounded in this place.
Part of this process has included a conscious unlearning of destructive colonial
conceptualizations of land as ‘property’ or ‘resource’ (Kepkiewicz & Dale, 2019) while
reckoning with my own complicity and entanglement with structures that can perpetuate such
narratives (ie. universities, governments, corporations). Critical self-reflection has also included
me coming to terms with the ‘messiness’ of anti-colonial work (Dzemua, 2021): messiness
stands against a universalization about supremacies of logic, linearity, objectivity, and ‘clean’

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evidence, all of which risk perpetuating colonial harms through re-entrenching colonial ways of
knowing in the academy (writing, publishing). Engaging with an interdisciplinary
methodological lens, leveraging a community engaged research design and conversational style
interviews, and attempting to position myself as a humble learner rather than ‘expert’ throughout
this research project were all part of my effort to not shy away from the ‘messiness’ of anticolonial work.
Through reflection, I have realized this work alone is not doing much in terms of
dismantling colonial structures or ways of being with Land and non-human kin. However,
through my journey with this aspiring de-colonial project, I have become more aware of the
inequitable and existential challenges facing life on earth today and, in the process of doing so, I
have become inspired and motivated to continue to learn and work with others in the pursuit of a
more healthy, just and sustainable world. To explore these questions, this research is inspired by
a community-based participatory research design, which I expand on in the following section.
Community-based participatory research fits within a de-colonial and anti-oppressive framework
by directly challenging traditional, extractive research relationships and by dismantling power
hierarchies between researcher and researched. It does this through working with community
members in self-determined ways who are seen as equally knowledgeable partners and cocreators in research.
Given how important it is for especially anti-colonial researchers to define their ontology
and epistemology (Kovach, 2010), I will do a little work locating myself. I am from mixed settler
ancestry. I grew up learning in a colonial education system, which promoted Eurocentric and
positivist understandings of health and the environment. Despite this, I often struggled to accept
depictions of humans as separate from nature. Wilson (2008) notes that one does not have to be

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Indigenous to engage with an Indigenous research paradigm but suggests that this engagement
necessitates a privileging of Indigenous knowledge rather than academic literature written by
non-Indigenous folks (Snow, 2018). In light of these suggestions (and those of many others), my
work herein was centred around and guided by Indigenous stories. Having learned (and
continuing to learn) about ways that coloniality underpins food-related inequities that Indigenous
people face, I felt compelled to do this research as part of my ongoing reconciliation journey. I
see this work as particularly important due to my position as a settler and entanglement with
colonial structures (including the university) and in light of scholar-activist calls for those with
more privilege to actively dismantle oppressive food structures (Hammelman, 2020). In their
study on engaging accountable relations in resource extraction and intersectoral research, Sloan
Morgan, Hoogeveen, Farreles et al (2020) express that being in positions of privilege comes with
responsibility. As is further discussed in Chapter 3 (p. 41), while this master’s project in itself
will likely not do much to facilitate holistic health and socio-ecological change, I see it as my
life-long responsibility to use my unearned privilege to work towards weakening oppressive
systems that bear unequally on people’s well-being. My research journal was crucial in helping
me strive to create impactful research and foster authentic relationships with knowledge holders
by allowing for continual self-reflection throughout this research journey.
This thesis is organized into four chapters. This introductory chapter is followed by
Chapter 2, which engages with written and spoken voices that provided background for the
research project. The background information in Chapter 2 includes a brief historical context of
food sovereignty in northern and Indigenous communities, an exploration of changing food
discourse, and a review of research that examines cases of food sovereignty practice in Canada.
The written and spoken voices in Chapter 2 informed Chapter 3, which describes the

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methodologies, research design, and methods that influenced and facilitated this research. The
methodologies that influenced this research, detailed in Chapter 3 along with my methods and
design, were 1) an interdisciplinary lens, 2) a strength-based orientation, and 3) de-colonial and
anti-oppressive theories. With these in mind, Chapter 4 highlights research findings supported by
the words of knowledge holders involved in this project through interviews. These findings are
discussed in relation to literature in Chapter 2 and elsewhere. Finally, Chapter 5 provides
concluding remarks and situates the research findings from Chapter 4 in relation to my initial
research questions and aims. Furthermore, Chapter 5 suggests avenues for future research and
offers my final reflections sparked as a result of this learning journey.

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CHAPTER 2:
Background, Review of Written Literatures, Spoken Voices, and Oral Knowledges
A large part of this research journey revolved around engaging with existing work in the
fields of Indigenous studies, political ecology, community health, and radical food geography—
all of which house information pertaining to food sovereignty and Indigenous food sovereignty.
This literature and knowledge review took place between September 2020 and December 2021. I
titled this chapter Background, Review of Written Literatures, Spoken Voices and Oral
Knowledges because I reviewed written and spoken voices. This approach is different than the
traditional western academic literature review in that I chose to honour orality as well as written,
academic work. Reviews of written and spoken voices have been favoured in the work of
Indigenous scholars, including Thompson (2012) and King (2020). My decision to include
written and spoken voices was also part of a community-engaged research process wherein
involved informants and knowledge holders influenced certain parts of the research, including
the research question and methods. The contents in this chapter draw from diverse sources
including scholarly literature, spoken conversations from speakers at events that I attended as
well as personal communications, movies, books and lectures: in this way, this chapter offers an
overview of key pieces of information from which I learned and that helped inform this master’s
project.

2.1 Historical Context
Last summer, a friend and colleague gifted me a new book entitled Indigenous Food
Systems: Concepts, Cases and Conversations (Settee & Shukla, 2020). The book is a collection

15

of lessons in the revitalization of Indigenous food systems in diverse communities across
Canada, and, given its relevance to my master’s thesis, I was eager to read it. In Chapter 6, Dr.
Leslie Dawson, a medical and nutritional anthropologist, provides a definition of a ‘foodway’:
“the intersection of food, culture, tradition, and history” (p.94). When I read those words, I was
reflected on what was missing in my thesis proposal. I realized that historical context, both on
globalized and localized scales, is something that I had failed to include in my initial literature
scan. When I started thinking about histories and historical contexts, I recalled something that
Dawn Morrison said at a screening of Gather, a film about the growing Indigenous food
sovereignty movement in what is now the United States: the institutionalization of agriculture in
terms of the domestication of plants and animals for the building of the ‘colonial empire,’ is a
point in time that is closely associated with a decline in human and ecological health (Morrison,
2021). Indeed, this is something that I have seen well documented elsewhere in the literature
(Alders et al., 2018; Hathaway, 2016; Sherwood et al, 2000).
According to archeological evidence, the Neolithic agricultural revolution (approximately
12000 BCE)— considered the ‘birth of civilization’ within Euro-colonial constructs —led to
micronutrient deficiencies. Grains became less abundant in nutrients when compared to the
staple foods of hunter-gatherer diets (primarily meat and vegetables) that had prevailed for 95%
of human existence (Ludwig, 2011). Further, the industrial revolution in the beginning of the 19th
century gave way to technologies that allowed for the mass production of highly processed
foods. Researchers have since found strong associations between consumption of processed
foods and a variety of chronic diseases (Ludwig, 2011). The desire to address global food
insecurity (Pingali, 2012), coupled with a variety of other social, political and environmental
factors, facilitated the ‘green revolution’— the orchestrated promotion of productivity-enhancing

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chemical and biological technologies in agriculture by agribusinesses agencies and others
(Briney, 2020; Sebby, 2010) —and eventually the approval of GMO (genetically modified
organism) and herbicide resistant crops later in the 20th century (Briney, 2020). Green revolution
practices, such as the use of monoculture crops (Alders et al., 2018; Brown, 2018), chemical
fertilizers (Rhodes, 2012) and homogenous seed varieties (Frison, 2016), are associated with
topsoil depletion, decreasing biodiversity, polluted air and waterways (Horrigan et al., 2002;
Kremen et al., 2012), disease outbreaks (Alders et al., 2018), harmful chemical pesticide
exposure (Brevik et al., 2019), worsening micronutrient deficiencies and, ironically, global
hunger (Horrigan et al., 2002).
It is also well documented that northern and Indigenous communities have, to the largest
extent as compared with non-Indigenous peoples, experienced this decline in health. This is
something that Dawn Morrison writes about in Chapter 2 of Indigenous Food Systems where she
explains the concept of ‘Fourth-World realities.’ Initially proposed by the late Secwepmc chief
George Manual, ‘Fourth-World’ realities refer to Indigenous people living in the so-called ‘First
World’ but experiencing ‘Third World’ conditions. Looking back through history, these ‘Fourth
World’ realities are contextualized by colonial violence and often intentional disruption of
Indigenous foodways. As these colonial histories continue, northern and Indigenous communities
face the highest rates of food insecurity in Canada (Council of Canadian Academies, 2014).
Food insecurity and corresponding poor health is directly related to coloniality (Castleden et al.,
2012; Greenwood et al., 2015). In what is now known as Canada and the United States, the past
centuries brought violent colonization of Indigenous peoples. Settlers perpetuated food-related
harms through destroying animal populations, such as fish in the Fraser River (Dashcuck, 2013)
and used food to control Indigenous people by forcing relocation by depleting resources as was

17

the case with the mass murder of buffalo in the Great Plains (Oatman, 2020). Colonial tactics
further included employing Indigenous people as slave labour on farming operations (Ostroff,
2019), separating communities from culturally appropriate foods and foodways in the residential
school system (Owen, 2019).
While colonial violence continued, given that post-war social welfarism presented a
strain on the economy for the capitalist class, neoliberalism in the 1970s, as an economic theory,
as well as an ideology, was embraced. The adoption of neoliberalism was largely driven by the
Thatcher and Reagan administrations in the United Kingdom and United States respectively,
leading to its uptake by many states around the world, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes due
to coercive measures from other states (Harvey, 2007). As an ideology, neoliberalism served to
liberate individuals from government regulation in order to promote ‘entrepreneurial freedom’
(Cohen, 2016) with the ultimate goal being to achieve ‘happiness’ in the most efficient manner
and for the greatest number (Cohen, 2016). Paradoxically, by distancing individuals from
centralized government supports, many of the social supports that came in the form of
centralized, often federal, government intervention at the individual scale needed to be absorbed
by smaller scale structures: communities, local organizations, families, and, in the end, the
individuals themselves. A key feature of neoliberal policies is that they serve to increase profits
by devolution of state responsibilities. This included dismantling social programs, de-regulating
local markets and allocating resources from public to private sectors.
As an economic theory and social paradigm, neoliberalism served to liberate capital from
the constraints of the government (Cohen, 2016). While the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement that
established the International Monetary Fund lay the groundwork for free trade, constraints still
existed that limited the movement of capital between nations. It was not until the late 1970s, due

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to a combination of technological changes and the aforementioned economic and political
pressures, that neoliberal political platforms gave rise to a new free-market regime that spread
around most of the world (Nugent & Vincent, 2008).
Through structural changes (like those that weakened farming sector protections and
national trade barriers), a specific manifestation of neoliberalism in modern agriculture has been
agri-food liberation and the growth of transnational agribusinesses (Ioris, 2016). Indeed, “most
of today’s agriculture activities can be described as the encroachment of neoliberal capitalism
upon rural areas and production, processing and distribution of agri-food goods and related
services” (Ioris, 2015, p.1). As such, the concept of agribusiness does not only include largescale farms reliant on advanced technology, but also corporate management of rural landscapes
and “the mobilization of resources and the financing and commercialization of production.”
(Ioris, 2018, p.2). Often referred to as the ‘Big 5,’ the most powerful transnational agriculture
corporations include Bayer, BASF, Corteva, Syngenta, and FMC (Kahn, 2021). Intimately tied to
agribusinesses, the top five countries contributing to agricultural exports (also sometimes
referred to as the ‘Big 5’) include the United States, Netherlands, Germany, France, and Brazil
(FAO, n.d.).
Since the green revolution and the wide adoption neoliberal capitalism around the world,
scholars and activists have observed a swath of justice, sustainability and health impacts
associated with the commercialization of agriculture. For instance, farmers needing to interact
now almost exclusively with banks and large agribusinesses led to weakened social relations in
small agricultural communities in some villages in India (Sebby, 2010). Further, some
agricultural companies, financed by Public Development Banks, have been involved in land
grabbing, human rights violations, environmental destruction, corruption and violence (La Via

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Campesina, 2021). These agricultural companies have prioritized the interests of the financial
elite when implementing laws and policies and have often failed to consult Indigenous Land
stewards and small-sale farmers who have been heavily impacted by various policy changes (La
Via Campesina, 2021). The emergence of neoliberal capitalism has enabled a select few,
transnational corporations to control most of the world’s food market through exercising
instrumental, structural and discursive power (i.e., lobbying governments, influencing food
policy and shaping public food discourse) (Ioris, 2018).
Learning more about the historical context in which I am asking these questions around
food and health has helped me contextualize the current food scape in Canada and in parts of
northern BC, as well as the current health inequities faced by Indigenous communities. Historical
examples specific to colonial violence around food have helped me understand complex ways in
which coloniality has impacted and continues to bear on Indigenous health.

2.2 Changing Food Discourse
Food norms and discourses are being constantly re-negotiated in changing socio-cultural
environments. Foucault (1972) describes discourse as a manifestation of power and dominance.
Escobar (1998) reiterates the power of discourse in writing that “the act of naming...is never
innocent” (p.55). Deepening my understanding of the historical context of food has helped me to
think more critically about the origins and nuances of dominant food discourses. For instance, in
the 1940s, a primary concern of policy makers and scholars worldwide was the issue of
starvation in the Global South (Perkins, 1997). During this time in Canada, recognizing the issue
of food insecurity and malnutrition, leading scientists carried out a number of highly unethical
nutritional experiments with known risks, including nutritional deficiencies (Johnson, 2021), on

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Indigenous communities (particularly children in residential schools). The scientists who carried
out experimentation in residential schools did so under the auspice of advancing nutritional
science and food policy. Scholars such as Mosby (2013) expose human rights violations and the
racist colonial logic behind these nutritional research experiments in Canada, arguing the
inherent racism and colonial underpinnings of the work and that the experiments were highly
unethical and did nothing to address food insecurity in Canada.
2.2.1. Food Security
Food security has been defined by the Food and Agricultural Association (FAO) as being
“... when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and
nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life
(2002, np). While concerns around food access persist across Canada and globally, scholars and
activists recognize the need to unpack food security discourse and to examine the exact natures
of food access issues. Wakefield et al. (2015) describe the ways in which ‘geographic
imaginaries’ contribute to food inequities in that “national discourses…tell a story of food
security being more of an important problem overseas” (p.90), while simultaneously omitting
certain groups, including Indigenous communities in Canada, who are often not ‘food secure.’
Further, Agyemen and McEntee (2014) discuss the ways in which food security
discourses facilitate ‘the state’ to define “what is or is not an area of inadequate food access,
thereby legitimizing the claims of some and discounting those of others who do not meet the
state’s criteria” (p.215). The authors highlight that white, middle-class and corporate interests are
largely overrepresented in discussions about food. On this point, Power (2008) considers the
food security conceptualizations in Canada and internationally that privilege the market food

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system as inadequate because these definitions exclude the diverse, traditional food systems and
practices central to Indigenous health, identity and survival.
Given these power asymmetries, Agyeman and McEntee articulate the importance of
scholar-activists not only engaging with struggles for food access, but also with struggles to
legitimize food knowledges and practices. The importance of legitimizing diverse food practices
is exemplified by Dawson (2020) who notes how the Canada Food Guide conveys Eurocentric
food values of appropriate foods and ways of eating. For instance, the food guide promotes
values of individualism (through images of eating from a single plate) and encourages portion
control and eating at certain mealtimes (structured around the capitalist workday). Dawson
explains that these food norms are not aligned with ways of eating for some Inuit communities in
Nunavut, for example, where sharing food, intuitive portions and unstructured mealtimes are
cultural practices. Learning more about the shortcomings of food security language has helped
me to reflect on my own biases to certain food norms and it has prompted me to think of ways
that I can avoid perpetuating colonial understandings of healthy food and eating habits in this
master’s work.
2.2.2. Alternative Consumption Narratives
Considering health, equity, and sustainability concerns seen in association with the
dominant industrial food system, alternative consumption narratives emerged in an effort to
address some of these issues. Phrases such as ‘support organic farming,’ and ‘buy from local
farmers’ gained popularity over the past decade (Myers and Sbicca, 2015). Similar to food
security discourses, Agyeman and McEntee (2014) describe how alternative consumption
discourses have been compromised by being ‘neoliberalized’ in that they falsely perpetuate the
notion that food injustice can be solved by consumerism and, in doing so, they shift the

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responsibility of equitable food access from governments to markets (markets that many do not
have ready or equitable access to). For Chris Newman, a US-based small-scale farmer, most
‘alternative’ food growers are already working within the confines of neoliberalism, making
them ineffective in competing against large-scale agricultural corporations and thus largely
ineffective in making a difference for health, justice and sustainability. Newman (2019) suggests
an alternative approach could be a co-op model resembling traditional Indigenous Land
stewardship in which “soil was seen as a commons and Land was worked cooperatively.” (para
9).
Bryant & Goodman (2004) also critique the commodification of resistance, arguing that
both ecocentric (conservation-seeking) and anthropocentric (solidarity-seeking) cultures
uncritically embrace consumerism as a political strategy. These strategies, they argue, can
perpetuate simplified understandings of the causes they seek to address, including social justice
and conservation. Their article provides a critical framework with which to conceptualize
alternative consumption narratives and ultimately exposes the market limitations of alternative
consumerism as a form of resistance.
Further, these alternative food movements perpetuate false dichotomies. They naturalize
colonial constructions of urban and rural (Agyeman & McEntee, 2014; Diagle, 2019), and
promote reductionist distinctions between fields of study such as food sovereignty, Indigenous
studies (Daigle, 2019) and environmental justice (Whyte, 2016). Indigenous food systems
(Daigle, 2019), radical food geography (Hammelman et al., 2020) and ecohealth scholarship
(Parkes, 2015), actively reject binary understandings of health, justice and sustainability, seeing
questions around food and health as holistic, interdisciplinary and enhanced by being engaged
with “both people and place” (Parkes, 2015, p.186). Lastly, by neglecting Indigenous voices,

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alternative consumption narratives fail to respect or legitimize Indigenous food knowledge.
These narratives also typically fail to address food that is bartered or gifted, which are common
practices in many places. The erasure of Indigenous voices in the academy is well documented
(de Leeuw & Hunt, 2018; Hunt, 2014; Todd, 2016) and particularly in ecological narratives
(Robbins, 2012). In line with these critiques, alternative consumption proponents have been
criticized for appropriating the ‘regenerative paradigm’ given its rootedness in Indigenous
worldviews (Gather, 2020; Morrison, 2021).
2.2.3 Food Sovereignty
The term ‘food sovereignty’ was first taken up publicly and broadly after being written
about in 1996 by the transnational peasant movement, La Via Campesina (Martens, 2015). The
movement understood food sovereignty as the peoples’ right to access healthy, sustainable and
culturally appropriate food, and to have increasing control over their food systems (La Via
Campesina, 2017). Scholars note that the appropriateness of food sovereignty over food security
lies in its emphasis on peoples’ control over their own food needs and food systems. Food
sovereignty has necessary political undertones that seek to push back against the inequitable
systems underpinning large scale food production (Martens, 2015) that unequally favour
corporate interests and control within the food system (Agyeman et al., 2014). The language of
food sovereignty also creates space for valuing and upholding traditional knowledges, practices,
and strengths, including those held in and among Indigenous communities.
For Martens (2015), food sovereignty is an intentionally broad and non-specific term that
can address local food-related problems with localized solutions. Since its inception, and

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especially since its six pillars were conceived of at the Nyeleni conference4 in 2007, food
sovereignty has turned into an international movement fighting for sustainable, equitable and just
food systems determined by those who produce, distribute and consume food (Nyeleni, 2007).
Since then, the language of food sovereignty has offered a more empowering and justice-oriented
alternative to previous food discourses and this language has been taken up by activists and
academics around the world. Food sovereignty is a rapidly growing discourse, gaining popularity
and is being conceptualized and promoted by various national and international organizations
(Cohen, 2006; United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2008;
McLaughlin et al., 2020). Food sovereignty goes hand in hand with agroecology, a movement
that is defined as ‘a way of redesigning food systems with a goal of achieving ecological,
economic, and social sustainability.’ The etymology of food sovereignty is slippery and has
undergone multiple and sometimes contradictory revisions (Patel. 2009). Despite this variation,
definitions of food sovereignty tend to emphasize peoples’ rights and lean toward anti-capitalist,
anti-oppressive and democratic food systems (Patel, 2009). As such, agroecology and food
sovereignty have been likened by scholars to Paulo Friere’s concept of critical pedagogy in that
they promote non-hierarchical, horizontal knowledge sharing. As such, these approaches have
been described as a ‘viable response’ to addressing global food insecurity and ecological crises
(Mann 2018).
While food sovereignty is often seen as a promising approach, scholars like Clenningden
et al. (2015) note that it too can be compromised by neoliberal contexts in which ‘radical food
movements’ can be reduced to ‘individualized consumption’ (Guthman, 2008). Another

The Nyeleni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty in Mali was a 6-day conference for community members and
policymakers designed to foster international solidarity and bring awareness to worldwide food insecurity and the
potential of food sovereignty (Janchitfah, 2007).
4

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shortcoming of food sovereignty is that it fails to resonate with all food movements. For
instance, Clenningden and colleagues note that food justice language was more readily taken up
by the urban food movements they studied in Oakland and New Orleans due to its better
alignment with socio-political histories and particularly racial justice movements (2015). Further,
Indigenous scholars have noted that the rights-based food sovereignty discourses can be
agriculture and state centric and fail to fully capture the relational responsibilities that are central
to Indigenous food sovereignty (Cote, 2016; Daigle, 2019, Martens et al., 2016, Whyte, 2016).
Due to these shortcomings of food sovereignty narratives, Indigenous food sovereignty emerged
as a related but also distinct movement from food sovereignty.
2.2.4. Indigenous Food Sovereignty
The Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty (WGIFS) sees Indigenous food
sovereignty as based on four principles: “the necessity of maintaining Indigenous relationships
with Land; the ongoing work of Indigenous peoples in shaping healthy and culturally appropriate
food systems; the daily maintenance of Indigenous food systems by Indigenous peoples; and the
need for Indigenous influence over [colonial] policies at all jurisdictional levels” (Morrison
2008, 2011 in Kepkeiwetz & Dale, 2019). The WGIFS defines Indigenous food sovereignty as
“a specific policy approach to addressing the underlying issues impacting Indigenous peoples
and [their] ability to respond to [their] own needs for healthy, culturally adapted Indigenous
foods” (Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, n.d.). In this way, the movement sees
Indigenous food sovereignty as a process that necessitates dismantling underlying colonial and
capitalist structures and attitudes that hinder Indigenous peoples’ self-determined food practices.
In line with this definition of Indigenous food sovereignty, scholar-activists are calling for more
critical and anti-colonial perspectives in food sovereignty discourses that centre the role of

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Indigenous women, youth, elders, queer, and two-spirited people in discussions around the
regeneration of Indigenous food ways and that actively reckon with power and oppressive
structures (Daigle, 2019; Hammelman et al., 2020).
“Indigenous people need to be living [food sovereignty] to keep it alive” said Dawn
Morrison at a recent virtual conference facilitated by McLaughlin et al. (2020) and hosted by
Food Secure Canada called Cultivating Change: A just transition to a regenerative food system.
Dawn Morrison is the Founder, Chair and Coordinator of the Working Group on Indigenous
Food Sovereignty that is a part of the Indigenous Food Systems Network. During this
conference, the moderator asked the panelists—all of whom were Indigenous food sovereignty
experts— how they think that humans should move forward in the face of the current existential
climate and health crises. The speakers unanimously agreed that we need to (re)activate ancestral
knowledge and knowing. As such, in addition to addressing food insecurity and social inequities
due to ongoing coloniality, activists identify Indigenous food sovereignty as necessary to address
existential crises facing all of humanity and non-human beings.
Despite its widely recognized benefits, there are many barriers (material and discursive)
to Indigenous food sovereignty. For instance, settler colonial domination of Land serves as a
barrier to Indigenous food sovereignty (Kepkiewicz & Dale, 2019; Rotz, 2017). Through
industrialization and neoliberalism, settler colonialism shaped the current agrifood system model
wherein settler domination of Land is perpetuated through colonial understandings of Land as
private property (Kepkiewicz & Dale, 2019) and racist constructions of the Indigenous ‘other.’
(Rotz, 2017). These understandings fail to complicate the concept of ‘food sovereignty,’ seeing it
largely in the context of land ownership and exclusively agriculture-based food sourcing
(Kepkiewicz & Dale, 2019). By failing to acknowledge that ‘property’ refers to stolen

27

Indigenous Land, settler food sovereignty conversations often disregard the context in which
they take place—namely within the ‘Canadian colonial project’— limiting their ability to
effectively support Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives and conversations. Cultural and
material domination (monopolization of land), predominantly by white men, is thus a key barrier
to diversifying the food system and, ultimately, to Indigenous food sovereignty. Corporate and
governmental “resource development” can be understood as another major physical barrier to
Indigenous food sovereignty (Delormier & Marquis, 2018). For instance, Jonasson et al., (2019)
explain that the Canadian government-supported Trans Mountain oil pipeline poses serious
threat to Indigenous food sovereignty through the potential contamination of traditional foods,
destruction of landscapes and waterways, and by contributing to climate change that increasingly
renders traditional foods inaccessible through species decline and the like (Schmid, 2020). As an
example, in 2018, in Wilp Wii'Litsxw territory of the Gitanyow Nation, droughts due to climate
change precluded sockeye salmon from being able to spawn in Tintina creek, having a major
impact on the salmon population in the Meziadin watershed at large. Further, through BC’s “free
entry” system5, with no consultation nor consent of Indigenous nations, companies can place
mineral claims on their unceded territory, further threatening the health of the Land, referred to
among the Gitanyow specifically as Ha Nii Tokxw: “Our Food Table” (Vovo Productions,
2021).
For this reason, Dr. Tabitha Robin Martens argues that groups like the ‘Tiny House
Warriors’ are examples of Indigenous food sovereignty champions (Johnson, 2020). The Tiny
House Warriors define themselves as a movement asserting their authority over their unceded

Created over 150 years ago, colonial legislation known as BC’s ‘free entry’ system gives mineral rights to those
who simply ‘stake a claim’ to most land in the province. Still-existing mineral claims today continue to prioritize
mining over most other land uses including Indigenous stewardship (Clogg, 2013).
5

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territories and re-establishing village sites by building ten tiny houses to occupy this Land to
protest the Trans Mountain pipeline from crossing unceded Secwepemc territory (Tiny House
Warriors, 2020). Though they are not protecting food directly, Martens (in Johnson (2020))
argues that by protecting unceded Lands and territories they are inherently engaging with food
sovereignty work because struggles for food sovereignty cannot be separated from struggles for
Land (Johnson, 2020). Unfortunately, as I write this in the winter of 2021, cabins, similarly to
those inhabited by the Tiny House Warriors, housing Gidimt’en Land defenders were violently
raided by militarized RCMP (Yintah Access, 2021). These unwarranted raids were followed by
the arrests of two Land defenders. One those arrested, Sleydo, stated before their arrest:
The Wet’suwet’en people, under the governance of their hereditary Chiefs, are standing
in the way of the largest fracking project in Canadian history. Our medicines, our berries,
our food, the animals, our water, our culture, our homes are all here since time
immemorial. We will never abandon our children to live in a world with no clean water.
We uphold our ancestral responsibilities. There will be no pipelines on Wet'suwet'en
territory. (Yintah Access, 2021, para 4).

In light of these events, Indigenous food sovereignty can undoubtedly be seen as
perpetually under attack by the ongoing Canadian colonial project. Indigenous food sovereignty
advocate and chef to the Quw’utsun Sul-hween, Jared Qwustenuxun Williams, describes how
food gentrification is an additional barrier to food sovereignty. Using the example of salmon,
Williams explains that the depletion of salmon stores by commercial fishing and its high market
price render it cost prohibitive for some communities who have traditionally relied on it as a
staple food (Williams, 2021). Nikopoulos and colleagues (2020) found that government policies
that restrict communities from hunting and fishing to be a barrier to food sovereignty in

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Alexander First Nation. Another recent example of these governmental barriers can be seen in
the violent and racist protest of the moderate livelihood fishery launched by Sipekne’katik First
Nation on unceded Mi’kmaq territory (Editorial Board, 2020). On the colonial and unjustified
grounds that this livelihood fishery was operating ‘out of season,’ (as defined by the colonial
government’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans) Mi’kmaq fishers were attacked by settler
fishermen, and were not afforded support or protection from colonial law enforcement
(McKinley & McKeen, 2020).
In addition to these material and ontological barriers to food sovereignty, discursive (or
epistemic) domination is a very significant barrier to Indigenous food sovereignty (Coté, 2016;
Desmarais & Whittman, 2014). Scholars argue that colonial discourses, put forth in Canada and
regarding land as it relates to food sovereignty, lack contextual nuance and fail to encompass
Land-based, relational responsibilities that are central to Indigenous food sovereignty. For
instance, Desmarais & Whittman (2014) are critical of food sovereignty definitions put forth by
some Canadian food organizations for being ‘agriculture and state- centric.’ These definitions
often portray localized food sourcing as the end goal of food sovereignty, while Indigenous food
sovereignty requires going beyond this and seeking to respect and protect ancient food practices
in the face of ongoing colonial barriers. Thus, Indigenous food sovereignty responds to the
unique barriers faced by Indigenous peoples due to colonization and ongoing colonial dynamics
in ways that settler food sovereignty discourses often fail to capture. Further, Indigenous food
sovereignty avoids a universal definition of food sovereignty in order to emphasize the important
differences between nations and their unique cultural and food needs and practices. In other
words, Indigenous food sovereignty will look different in different places.
Coté (2016), an associate professor and a member of Tseshaht/Nuu-chah-nulth First

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Nation, notes that Eurocentric and Cartesian understandings about and discursive constructions
of the environment (that see humans as dominant over Land and other non-human entities), are
in stark contrast to Indigenous ‘eco-philosophy,’ which emphasizes Indigenous peoples’
responsibility to manage their relationship with Land in a dignified and respectful manner. As
such, in addition to being agriculture and state-focussed, Coté highlights criticisms of the term
‘sovereignty’ in the context of Indigenous food sovereignty that may falsely imply a struggle for
power over land rather than the need to respond to the cultural responsibility of fostering
dignified relationships with Land. On this point, Desmarais & Whitman (2014) comment that
“the use of food sovereignty discourse requires detaching the word ‘sovereignty’ from its
historical and legal meanings and reconstructing elements of popular control, autonomy and
interdependence” (p.1167). As these examples demonstrate, it is important to consider the
multitude of ways in which coloniality creates complex barriers for Indigenous people to engage
in self-determined food practices. Interrogating these barriers will provide important contextual
information. It is crucial to note that in spite of these barriers, Indigenous peoples across Canada
continue to champion food sovereignty work.

2.3. Cases and Reflections
Given my interest in learning about and highlighting examples of food sovereignty
practice in northern BC, I began engaging with literature that explored Indigenous food
sovereignty initiatives in other parts of Canada. The following sections discuss the themes that
emerged from the literature that I reviewed. Engaging with research on food sovereignty
initiatives similar to that which I was preparing to conduct was instrumental in informing my
research, including its methodological influences, research design and methods.

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2.3.1. Revitalization, Resurgence and Self-Determination
Several studies looking at cases of Indigenous food sovereignty highlighted its
importance in the revitalization and resurgence of culture and self-determination. For instance,
Kamal et al., (2015) explored O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation’s development of a communitybased food program called Ithinto Mechisowin. The authors emphasize the ways in which this
particular food program promoted the revitalization of cultural food practices through youth
engagement and through Elder involvement. They argue that the implementation of similar food
programs can provide social and cultural benefits to other Indigenous communities.
Further, through interviewing Anishinaabe knowledge holders and highlighting
Anishinaabe laws (particularly laws of mino bimaadiziwin or ‘living the good life’), Cree
scholar, Daigle (2019), explored food sovereignty in the context of everyday acts of resurgence
and resistance against settler colonialism and neocolonial capitalism. Through this work, Daigle
highlights the ways in which Indigenous people are working every day to enact their cultural
responsibilities to the Land and other kin. The author concludes by questioning the ways in
which food sovereignty discourse can be more accountable to Indigenous laws, decolonization
and self-determination. The above examples describe Indigenous food sovereignty as more than
simply a way to improve ‘health,’ but rather as a vehicle for cultural revitalization, resurgence
and self-determination. Given my intention to enact a strength-based approach in this work,
paying particular attention to these kinds of asset-based framings of Indigenous food sovereignty
were crucial throughout my research moving forward.
2.3.2. Land and Community
According to Ratima et al., 2019 “Ancestral Land has special significance for Indigenous
Health Promotion as a point of connection between past, present, and future generations; a

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source of identity and spiritual sustenance; and a place that fosters community participation and
cohesion” (p.4). The theme of connection to Land and community appears to be central to
people’s experiences with food. For instance, from discussions with inner-city Indigenous
residents of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Cidro et al., (2015) identified that “cultural food [is] a part of
connection to Land through reciprocity” (p.33). Further, through interviews and a ‘circle
metaphor’ methodology, Martens et al. (2016) and Robin (2019) highlight key Indigenous food
sovereignty themes that emerged through the research, concluding that common Indigenous food
sovereignty tenets included history, connection to identity, relationships and the Land. Indeed,
Gilpin & Hayes (2020) describe relationships to Land and Waters as informing “cultural
protocols of good relationship, governance and wellness traditions for Indigenous communities
around the world” (p.103). Martens & Cidro (2020) describe food as a “relationship builder”
(p.144). Further, in the film Food Is Connection, food was described as both being constituted by
Land and community (Risheq, 2020) and in online videos of food sovereignty at Tea Creek
Farm, several youth trainees were asked what they liked about the farm and they answered by
describing their experiences connecting with the earth and with other people at the farm (Beaton,
2021). This was also conveyed in a study by Pawlowska-Mainville (2020) where Anishinaabe
Elders from the Poplar River First Nation defined Aki Miijim, a word that means ‘Land food’ and
describes their territory as the “Land that gives life” (p.60). Learning about these examples has
deepened my understanding of the inherent connection between food, Land and people. This is a
theme I will be attentive to throughout my research in order to portray the richness of these
relationships that are at the core of food, health and well-being.

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2.3.3. Health and Well-being
As previously mentioned, not only is land central to food, but “Relationships to Land and
to Waters constitute the backbone of community wellness” (Gilpin & Hayes, 2020, p.102), as has
been specifically demonstrated by communities in ‘British Columbia’ (Stelkia et al., 2021).
Given this project’s focus on health, and the interconnectedness of food and holistic health
(Cidro et al., 2015), while reading the aforementioned food sovereignty literature, I realized that
it was equally important that I expand my understanding of health. Unsurprisingly, I learned that,
like food, health discourses tend to portray Eurocentric understandings of the subject. These
narratives often solely focus on human, biophysical manifestations of health while overlooking
its emotional, mental and spiritual dimensions (Dawson, 2020). Such understandings are often in
stark contrast to those held in many Indigenous communities who have collected health
observations or ‘indicators’ over thousands of years that are transmitted through storytelling and
Indigenous laws. For instance, Daigle (2019) reflects on the Anishinaabe law of mino
bimaadiziwin which translates to ‘living the good life’ that guides Indigenous self-determination
in living and acting relational responsibilities. Daigle explains that this is just one of the many
laws that govern Indigenous relations with each other and non-human kin and that give life to the
Land and Waters that many depend on (Daigle, 2019). These health observations often draw no
division between the health of humans and that of non-human entities in the community and the
environment with which the community lives (Crowshoe, 2018). As such, scholars such as
Dawson (2020) suggest that Indigenous perspectives of health might better be encompassed with
a language of ‘well-being,’ which speaks to less reductionistic and more holistic understandings
of what it means to be well.
I also gained some helpful understanding about the field of ‘ecohealth’ or ‘ecosystem

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approaches to health’ as strategies to address upstream social and ecological determinants of
health (Buse et al., 2018; Parkes, 2015; Ratima et al., 2019; Redvers et al., 2020). Ecohealth
approaches bridge and seek connections among sustainability, equity and health. In doing so,
these approaches push back against dominant health narratives through integrative, participatory
and collaborative knowledge sharing and action (Parkes, 2015). Ratima et al. (2019) suggest an
extension of the field of planetary health that similarly critiques the original ‘social determinants
of health’ given their human-centredness and failure to encompass determinants specific to
Indigenous heath such as colonisation. Indigenous-informed planetary health narratives proposed
by Ratima et al., (2019) suggest instead positioning the planet as the focus for health
intervention. This framing of health in terms of planetary determinants encourages prioritization
of factors that protect planetary health, such as Indigenous Land defense, as key health
promotion strategies. It is important to note that such ecocentric approaches to health are in no
way new. Rather relational and integrative perspectives have been deeply embedded in the
worldviews of Indigenous communities for thousands of years. In fact, scholars such as
Moewaka Barnes see such approaches as directly related to Indigenous survival (McIntosh et al,
2021; Moewaka Barnes and McCreanor, 2019). They are attributable to none other than
Indigenous science. These ecocentric perspectives have tended to be ignored or delegitimized in
favour of reductionist anthropocentric understandings of health (Ratima et al., 2019; Redvers,
2021).
Given current socio-ecological crises, scholars now see Indigenous wisdom as a
necessary guide in the field of planetary health (Ratima et al., 2019). Proponents argue that
developing an orientation to determinants of planetary health is not only crucial as a means of
decolonizing health narratives, but also as a means of moving forward in the face of climate and

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(interconnected) public health emergencies (Ratima et al., 2019; Redvers, 2021). As Kimmerer
(2013) eloquently puts it “…we make a grave error if we try to separate individual well-being
from the health of the whole” (p.16).
Deepening my learning about the shortcomings of dominant health discourse and
alternative health framings has helped me to gain insight into ways that I could operationalize
these approaches in my own work. Most importantly, these concepts have encouraged me to
think about who is involved in this work, in what capacities and how the knowledge sharing
done throughout this work could in some small way contribute to collaborative action. In
addition to thinking critically about health discourse, in this master’s research, I was interested in
attending to the concrete ways in which northern and Indigenous food sovereignty endeavours
bear on health. One potential pathway I identified in the literature was that food sovereignty
practices can facilitate expression of identity and in turn foster wellness. Several scholars have
described food sovereignty as a vehicle for cultural identity revitalization (Gilpin & Hayes, 2020;
Levi, 2020; Martens & Cidro, 2020) and identity has been associated with well-being. According
to Martens (2015) “understanding cultural practices, norms, ideologies and perspectives is
crucial to supporting cultural identity” (p. 53). For instance, Martens expresses the importance
that women be included in food procurement given their historical role in cultivating plant foods.
In this way, engaging in cultural protocols can foster cultural identity. According to Dawson,
2020, “the Kahnawa:ke idea of well-being involves interconnectedness, relationships,
responsibilities and roles, as well as knowing oneself as whole in spirit” (p.89). Attending to the
ways in which people speak about identity in relation to food sovereignty and wellness was
important for me in this work in order to identify multifaceted ways in which food sovereignty
practices might facilitate health and well-being.

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2.4 Community Engagement
In addition to reviewing and delving deep into written and visual literatures, I spoke with
community experts involved with food sovereignty projects across northern BC before beginning
the formal research process. This was a preliminary stage of the project which did not involve
research ethics because it was not part of data collection. According to the Tri-Council Policy
Statement, Article 6.11, “REB review is not required for the initial exploratory phase, which is
intended to establish research partnerships or to inform the design of a research proposal and
may involve contact with individuals or communities.” This stage involved outreach to
community experts to gather their existing expert knowledge on the project and drew on
community members’ existing expertise to inform further steps in the research project that were
covered by ethics. In the following section I surface and give recognition to these preliminary
conversations while anonymizing the people who informed the project
Engaging with community experts involved with food sovereignty initiatives in northern
BC communities, as well as reviewing non-written work such as podcasts, YouTube videos and
live webinars, comprises the ‘spoken voices’ component of this review. I spoke with these
people in an effort to ensure that members of communities across northern BC had the
opportunity to inform various stages of the research, including guiding its research focus and
methods. While I did not adhere to a community-based participatory research design fully, as is
discussed in Chapter 3, this community engagement effort was informed by principles of
community-based participatory research.
For the purpose of this research, I do not understand community exclusively as a
geographical location, although geographical place and environmental context are necessarily

37

related to questions around food sovereignty that I seek to ask in this research. My understanding
of community is influenced by the field of human geography which studies “[i]nteractions and
social habits of humans within and across all spaces…” (Mayhew, 2009) in (de Leeuw, 2018,
p.190). According to Young in Farrelly (2003) “there is no universal concept of community, but
only particular orientations that overlap, complement or sit at acute angles to one another”
(p.195). In other words, community can mean “all things to all people” (McDowell & Sharp,
2014, p.35). Community in the way that I use it in this thesis aligns with feminist geography
arguments suggesting that community can never be exclusive and that rendering community as
exclusive is deeply problematic because it fails to recognize inherent slippage between place,
space, cultural identity, kinship, shared values, histories and practices (McDowell & Sharp,
2014). Instead, in this project, I am interested in relationalities between communities, some of
whom are specifically located in a place (i.e., northern BC) but many of whom cross outside of
geographic boundaries insofar as they have relational engagements with broader sociocultural
communities in their orientation to rurality and to food sovereignty.
Despite the limited time students face to pursue community engagement, scholars such as
Kirby et al (2017) note the importance of understanding and aspiring to engage communities
involved in research as much as possible in order to avoid perpetuating extractive research
(wherein researchers conduct research on participants without much consultation, relationship or
partnership-building). Community engagement can take the form of a wide range of approaches
and can be employed to serve a variety of research goals (Kirby et al., 2017). Shortly after
moving to Prince George, and when I began my master’s thesis in September 2020, I started
talking with community experts about food sovereignty. These informal conversations took place

38

over zoom and over the phone from September 2020 until April 2021. During this community
engagement phase I connected with close to fifty people.
My goals in having these conversations were to 1) better understand whether the research
questions I was interested in asking would be helpful to these people and their communities, and
2) to get a sense of which methodological tools (methods) would be most appropriate to leverage
as a means of asking these questions. In speaking with community experts about my research
interests and seeking their input on my ideas and my objectives, I tried to be authentic in my
communication by being transparent about my background, worldview and intentions. I asked
community experts with whom I spoke about whether my research ideas would be helpful for
them and their communities. I asked community experts with whom I spoke if and how they
might like to be involved in the research and I have asked how they would like to be
compensated for their involvement. Often, I asked for, or community experts voluntarily offered,
further connections of more people they believed to be knowledgeable about northern BC food
sovereignty.
As I embarked on this learning journey, I became aware of the diversity of food
sovereignty contexts within northern BC and I wanted to avoid generalizing across vast and
varied geographies. I spoke with people from a variety of northern BC communities during the
community engagement phase, including community experts from the Peace, Haida Gwaii,
Terrace, Bella Bella and Quesnel to name a few. When I sent out invitations to engage in
conversational interviews, overall, those who accepted came from the central interior (Prince
George, Quesnel and Valemount), the northern coast (Prince Rupert and Bella Bella) and the
Skeena-Bulkley (Terrace, Smithers, Kitwanga, and the Hazeltons) regions. Table 1 provides

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examples of the community experts I engaged with, and their range of interests in the research,
which also shaped subsequent research design.

Table 1: Examples of Community Experts and their Interests in the Research
Community Experts

Key Interests

Central interior farmers

Involvement through interviews in this research which
could shed light on barriers faced by northern BC
farmers (given limited governmental support and
educational opportunities for northern BC farmers and
limited research on food growing in northern BC).

Central interior food markets

Involvement through interviews in this research which
could help illuminate barriers to northern BC food
hubs (i.e., weather and land access issues, financial
barriers/ limited governmental support/ precarious
local food market) and inform unique models for local
norther BC food networks.

Peace River, Island, Northern Coastal and

Potential involvement in reciprocal, non-extractive

Skeena-Bulkley food harvesters and Land-

research partnerships through interviews or focus

based educators

groups (i.e., having me provide research assistance
through community focus group analysis in exchange
for involvement in my project) given traditionally
extractive settler-led academic research and having
already-stretched capacity.

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Northern coastal and Skeena-Bulkley

Interested in collaborative research projects (ex. where

related organization employees

I provide research assistance in exchange for
participation through surveys or interviews), interested
in sharing resources (i.e., northern BC food
sovereignty reports and literature), interested in
helping to connect me with other northern BC food
sovereignty experts.

Central interior government sector

Interested in connecting me with additional northern

employees

BC food sovereignty resources (i.e., inviting me to an
Indigenous food sovereignty townhall session, sharing
local food reports, and putting me in contact with other
northern BC food sovereignty experts).

Speaking and building relationships with almost fifty people, from very diverse
organizations and places across northern BC, was a deeply instructional process. Importantly, my
conversations with each of these people helped me make decisions about this research, gave me
ideas about how to conduct the research and in many ways has reinforced that I’m not ‘out to
lunch’ with regard to what I decided to study. The enthusiasm demonstrated during the generous
connections suggest an authentic interest in the themes that run through this research, namely
food sovereignty and holistic health in northern BC. In addition, the frequent requests for me to
work on concrete components of food sovereignty work gave me great confidence that I, as
should be the case with community-engaged work, was doing meaningful work at the behest of
whomever I ended up working with.

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Despite many of the aforementioned people expressing interest in being involved with
this project, when it was time to engage in conversational interviews, many did not end up
continuing to be involved due to a number of reasons that are discussed in Chapter 5, such as
having limited energy to engage in research while actively resisting colonial processes, facing
barriers associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic, and being occupied with Land-based
commitments. Even some people with whom I had several conversations with during the
community engagement phase were not able to engage in conversational interviews when the
time came. Nonetheless, I’m grateful to everyone who contributed to this project including those
that were only involved in the community engagement. Having these conversations early on gave
me valuable context about diverse foodscapes across northern BC and validated the relevance of
this research project.

2.5 Reflections and summaries to Background, Review of Written Literatures, Spoken
Voices and Oral Knowledges
The conversations I had with people as part of my community engagement effort both
reinforced things that I learned in the literature and gave me new insights that were communityspecific and place-based. In many ways, the background literature was in line with the spoken
voices with whom I engaged—informants largely preferred the term food sovereignty as is
supported by literature on the ways in which food discourse is changing. I asked their preferred
method of participating and I offered options such as email surveys, formal interviews and semistructured, conversational interviews. When presented these options, informants and involved
knowledge holders largely preferred conversational interview methods. The use of these methods
is supported in other research exploring other cases of food sovereignty practice in Canada

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(Cidro et al., 2015; Daigle, 2019; Kamal et al., 2015). Conversational interview methods are
further discussed in Chapter 3. Lastly, these conversations re-affirmed the gap that I saw in
reviewing the literature and supported the notion that more research is needed to explore health
experiences of food sovereignty in northern BC. In many other ways, these conversations gave
me insights that I could not have gotten from the literature alone given the ways in which food
sovereignty practice is shaped by people and place (Risheq, 2020). For instance, learning about
unique administrative, social, cultural and place-based barriers experienced by people living in
these conceptual and geographic communities made me aware of the need to explore food
sovereignty and holistic health on a local scale.
Having been informed by the background that I gained from written and spoken voices
discussed in Chapter 2, the following chapter will outline the methodological influences,
research design and concrete methodological tools (methods) that informed and facilitated this
research to take place. Given the ways in which colonialism has impacted and continues to
impact Indigenous health and food sovereign practices (as explored in Chapter 2), Chapter 3
highlights the important influence of interdisciplinary, strength-based and de-colonial and antioppressive methodologies to this project. These methodological influences are closely related to
a community-based participatory research design, which was not enacted in this project, but was
an aspiration throughout. Finally, given their usefulness in other scholarly work in the field
(Cidro et al., 2015; Daigle, 2019; Kamal et al., 2015), and given the preference of informants that
I spoke with as part of community engagement, Chapter 3 highlights my choice to leverage
conversational interviews as a means to explore my research questions and address my research
aims.

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CHAPTER 3: Methodological Influences, Research Design and Methods
Methodology brings together ways of knowing and doing (Sloan Morgan, 2021); it is “a
set of rules and procedures about how research should be conducted.” (Kirby et al., 2017, p.13).
Methodology guides methods. Methodologies are the theories behind the methods, providing the
context for why certain methods are chosen in research and how these relate to research
outcomes. Research design can be seen as a ‘plan’ that outlines how a researcher will answer
their research questions (Patton, 2015). As part of the research design, methods are a tool by
which research questions are answered. Methods work in concert with the theoretical and
methodological frameworks with which they are interdigitated; methods operate less as
conceptual aspects of research and more as grounded, applied tools that a researcher uses. This
chapter explains and details the various methodological influences and associated research
design and methods used to answer my research questions.
Seeking to explore the experiences of folks involved with food sovereignty and the ways
in which sociopolitical, cultural and environmental factors prohibit and enliven these
experiences, I employed qualitative methodologies in this research. Qualitative methodologies
“embrace the complexity of social interactions as expressed in daily life” (Kirby et al., 2017,
p.36) and they “inquire into…the meaning-making process” (Patton, 2015, p.3). As such, this
study’s grounding in qualitative theory is appropriate to illuminate the complex health
experiences of those enacting food sovereign practices in northern BC.
This chapter thus outlines the key methodological influences that informed this study.
These methodological influences are 1) an interdisciplinary lens, 2) a strength-based influence,
and 3) an anti-oppressive and de-colonial orientation. Next, the chapter outlines the research
design this study was inspired by, namely community-based participatory research (CBPR). I

44

discuss the parts of this study that were in line with a community-based research process, and the
parts that were not participatory, concluding that, overall, this work was community-informed, if
not fully CBPR. I go on then to discuss the concrete methods that I leveraged in this study,
including conversational interviews, thematic analysis and member-checking. Lastly, I discuss
ethical considerations, including negotiating my ‘outsider’ status (further discussed on p.51),
being trauma-informed, and honouring free, voluntary ongoing consent and involved knowledge
holders’ confidentiality preferences.

3.1 Methodological Influences
The following section outlines the methodologies that influenced this study, and which
were informed by my initial research questions and the written and spoken voices discussed in
Chapter 2. Given that this study’s research questions inquire about peoples’ holistic health
experiences as they relate to pursuing food sovereignty in northern BC, I saw an interdisciplinary
methodological lens as necessary to grapple with peoples’ inevitably complex and holistic ideas
and words. I drew from a strength-based methodological influence in light of harms that have
been inflicted on Indigenous peoples as a result of extractive and deficit-focussed research
(Aldred et al., 2020; Bryant et al., 2020) and in an effort to highlight Indigenous selfdetermination and decolonization that are closely related to food sovereign practices (Daigle,
2019). Given the unique barriers that Indigenous food sovereignty champions face as a result of
settler land dominance (Rotz, 2017), resource extraction (Cote, 2016; Jonasson et al., 2019;
Schmid, 2020) and settler understandings of Land as private property (Kepkiewicz & Dale,
2019), and given the ways in which colonialism is closely tied to the patriarchy (Mollett & Faria,
2013), I was informed by an anti-oppressive and de-colonial methodological influence. I drew

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from an anti-oppressive and de-colonial methodological influence in an effort to resist oppressive
and colonial power dynamics that exist in the places and spaces where I conducted this research.
Specifically, I engaged communities of people who have been traditionally excluded from
research (including rural farmers and Indigenous knowledge holders). Through undertaking
qualitative research that foregrounds community experts’ holistic health experiences of food
sovereignty, I made efforts to counterbalance dominant, quantitative, food security and deficitfocussed Indigenous health research. I engaged with community in an effort to foster authentic
relationships before asking community experts to be part of this research. I privileged the voices
of women and people of colour when reviewing written and spoken voices and when inviting
community members to engage in conversational interviews, and I positioned involved
knowledge holders as experts in this research rather than participants. Through listening to the
requests of those involved, I offered small compensation services and gifts that were tailored to
their needs.

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3.1.1 Interdisciplinary Methodological Lens
Scholar-activists see food studies as inherently interdisciplinary, having diverse
disciplinary roots that include contributions from geography, anthropology, history, Indigenous
studies, nutrition and agriculture science (Hammelman, 2020), and benefiting from drawing on
an “interdisciplinary dialogue between food sovereignty scholarship and Indigenous studies”
(Daigle, 2019, p.300). Interdisciplinarity is seen an approach to help ‘make sense of’ the
complexities of human social life. Though having roots in Kantianism and the foundation of the
‘modern university,’ political and economic factors led to the abandonment of interdisciplinarity
in favour of solidifying disciplinary boundaries and specialization within the academy in the 20th
century. The recent resurgence of interdisciplinarity— largely driven by the perceived need to
address epistemological ‘blind spots’ during the Cold War era —challenges the academic status
quo and, particularly, the validity of the ‘expert.’ (Callard and Fitzgerald, 2015).
Robin Wall Kimmerer, the author of Braiding Sweetgrass, writes that while bringing
together paradigms of knowledge (a prerequisite for interdisciplinary thought) can result in an
awkward teetering between two worlds, it can also enable a “dance of cross-pollination that can
produce new species of knowledge and new ways of being in the world” (Kimmerer, 2013,
p.47). Though more closely related to transdisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity can be seen as
comparable in some ways to the Indigenous methodology of Two Eyed Seeing given their
similar approaches in integrating the strengths of different ways of knowing (Kirby et al., 2017).
First proposed by Mi’kmaq Elders, Albert, and Murdena Marshall, Two Eyed Seeing
methodologies aim to bring together the best that Western and Indigenous knowledges have to
offer, where each knowledge paradigm is represented by the lens of one eye. Using a Two Eyed
Seeing framework, different knowledges are seen as equally valuable, legitimate and bringing

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unique, complementary strengths to research (Wright et al., 2019). In this way, scholars consider
Two Eyed Seeing a decolonizing methodology in that it honours Indigenous knowledge and
recognizes the unique and necessary perspectives that Indigenous ways of knowing offer in ways
that Western knowledges cannot (including relational ontologies) (Wright et al., 2019). Given
that I seek to highlight multiple truths and holistic perspectives in this research project, I see this
work as informed by Two Eyed Seeing approaches; however, this project was not designed to
operationalize Two Eyed Seeing, nor did it do so, in all aspects of the research.
Further, in Monocultures of the Mind, Shiva (1993) critiques the ways in which dominant
knowledge systems like science have become recognized as universally applicable and true in a
way that destroys diversity. Dominant knowledges do this, Shiva argues, through ignoring,
delegitimizing, and destroying the integrative conditions required to uphold local knowledges.
Shiva likens dominant knowledge systems to monocultural farming practices that similarly
destroy the physical conditions necessary for a diversity of living and non-living beings. I thus
saw it as imperative that I employed an integrative, interdisciplinary lens when approaching
questions around alternative food sourcing given the multitude of harms caused by physical and
mental monocultures.
Given that questions around food are “made stronger through engagements across
disciplinary lines” (Hammelman, 2020, p.7), this research draws from diverse disciplines—most
notably health science, First Nations studies, environmental studies and geography—to explore
questions around food sovereignty and health. In doing so, it seeks to respond to scholar-activist
calls for engagement with ‘radical food geography praxis’ seen as necessary to move forward
equity and sustainability-oriented food praxis (Levkoe et al., 2020; Hammelman, 2020).

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3.1.2 Strength-based Methodological Influence
As previously mentioned, this research intentionally foregrounds the strength and
resilience of knowledge holders by focussing on positive, health-related experiences related to
food sovereignty. I see a strength-based approach as necessary in this research in order to avoid
perpetuating harms associated with neoliberal pathologizing of Indigenous communities (Aldred
et al., 2020; Cooper & Driedger, 2018). It is well-documented that deficit narratives prevail in
Indigenous-focussed health research wherein Indigenous communities are pathologized from a
Western biomedical point of view (Aldred et al., 2020; Bryant et al., 2020). As eloquently stated
by Dawn Hoogeveen in a session with McIntosh and others (2021), Indigenous-focussed
research has been plagued by a deficit focus, which has narrowly approached only the ‘endpoints’ of healing journeys. Other scholars such as Bryant et al. (2021) and Hyett et al. (2019)
echo these concerns. These deficit-focussed depictions are often highly racialized and subjugate
Indigenous knowledge by positioning biomedical understandings of health as the most objective
and legitimate way of knowing. As a result, strength-based approaches are gaining traction as a
means to disrupt harmful deficit narratives through highlighting Indigenous sovereignty, selfdetermination and resistance (Bryant et al., 2021). Bryant and colleagues (2021) conceptually
map three main approaches to strength-based health research with Indigenous communities:
resilience, social-ecological and sociocultural approaches. They stress the importance of
employing sociocultural approaches that highlight collective, socially mediated strengths. Indeed
“despite variations across Indigenous cultures, both the sources and outcomes of strength in
Indigenous models are largely thought of as social rather than primarily individual.” (FNIGC,
2020, p.21). Focussing on collective assets inherent in Indigenous-focused health research
requires that scholars engage with and centre Indigenous concepts and experiences in strength-

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based health research. In spite of the diversity of healing practices across Indigenous
communities in Canada, there are commonalities among Indigenous understandings of health,
well-being, strength and resilience. According to FNIGC (2020), these common themes include
balance and interconnection, culture and spirituality, family and community and connection to
Land and environment.
In line with the literature and in an effort to counter dominant health and strength
narratives that prioritize reductionist and individualistic understandings of physiological and
mental health (Bryant et al., 2021), I made an effort to highlight collective strength that
knowledge holders expressed, which I expand on in Chapter 4. Learning that family, community
and connection to Land are common themes central to Indigenous understandings of health,
well-being, and strength (FNIGC, 2020) helped me to situate knowledge holders’ ideas that drew
on these themes in a larger context of collective strength.
3.1.3 De-colonial and Anti-oppressive Methodological Influences
In Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, Lorde (1980) describes the
various forms of deviance that result in privilege and oppression:
Racism [is] the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby
the right to dominance. Sexism [is] the belief in the inherent superiority of one sex over
the other and thereby the right to dominance. Ageism. Heterosexism. Elitism. Classism.
(p.2).
For Lorde (1980), failure to recognize and work across differences limits the oppressed from
uniting as equals for a common goal. In the context of feminism, Lorde suggests that
acknowledging difference [requires] “women of Color to step out of stereotypes [which] is too
guilt provoking, for it “threatens the complacency of those women who view oppression only in

50

terms of sex.” (p.3). Lorde’s theory likely explains hooks’s (1994) recount of white women
professors being resistant to engage in critical feminist thinking with black students. This is true,
Lorde argues, as long as difference is neglected or understood in terms of deviance and
hierarchical binaries such as superiority/inferiority. To overcome this oppressive thinking, it’s
necessary to “recognize differences among women who are our equals, neither inferior nor
superior, and devise ways to use each other’s difference to enrich our visions and our joint
struggles (Lorde, 1980, p.6).
With scholars and activists calling for more attention to gendered and culturally sensitive
analysis in research on social and ecological determinants of health (Mollett & Faria, 2013), I
carefully considered gender in the research design. According to Kleinman (2011),
operationalizing feminist research necessitates both attending to how gender inequalities are
‘lived out,’ and how they are resisted, as well as “becoming cognizant of patterned absences”
(p.11). For instance, considering ways in which women are written in or out of certain roles
within food systems, how factors encourage these folks to occupy certain roles, and how they
exist within or resist oppressive structures.
The need for gender, and culturally-sensitive analysis is echoed by food sovereignty
advocacy groups. Many of these advocates have long seen struggles for food justice as inherently
connected with resistance to patriarchal domination and with struggles for the rights and respect
of women (La Via Campesina, 2020). For instance, women make up the majority of the world’s
food producers (La Via Campesina, n.d.) and women occupied the role of Land stewardship and
food distribution in many matrilineal societies such as Haudenosaunee (Delormier & Marquis,
2019). Women thus play a central role in food systems, demonstrating the interconnection of
gender, food systems, and rights. This research therefore considered it imperative that women’s

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voices were at the forefront of conversations around food (traditionally dominated by men).
While acknowledging that the patriarchy is closely tied to colonialism and racial capitalism, this
research was also sensitive to intersectionality. It adopted a nuanced view of ‘gender,’ seeing it
as something that is fluid, context-dependent, and inherently underpinned by race, racialization
and racism (Mollett & Faria, 2013).
As part of my commitment to operationalize anti-oppressive research, I have been
committed to seeking out relevant learning opportunities throughout this master’s project. As
part of this commitment, I attended an anti-racism event put on by the Collective for AntiRacism (CAR). During this event, Métis/Cree clinician and educator, Jennifer-Lee Koble, shared
a piece of advice for aspiring allies: ‘Don’t tell me you’re an ally, but how do I know you’re an
ally?’ I had made this mistake once before— stating my intention for allyship rather than
showing it. My privileged ignorance was met by a reminder that allyship isn’t something that is
up to me to decide. My white and fragile ego took a blow. As I remembered this incident and
listened to Jennifer, I wondered how marginalized friends and colleagues might know that I’m an
ally. One way that Jennifer suggested was engaging in ‘clean’ discomfort— naming and
disrupting everyday acts of racism and oppression. As aptly explained by Kendi (2019) “the only
remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination” (p.19). In other words, one cannot
refrain from engaging with racist systems, rather they engage with them constantly through
either racism or anti-racism.
In her Ted Talk ‘How Studying Privilege Systems Can Strengthen Compassion,” Peggy
McIntosh likens privilege to an inherited bank account. Like a gifted sum of money, privilege is
something that one does not earn, but that one can use to help weaken oppressive systems
through engaging in anti-oppression work. A central tenet of anti-oppressive research is to “name

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and then disrupt oppressive thinking by deliberately asking questions that illuminate these
processes [and] to question standard research assumptions such as ‘objectivity’ or ‘hierarchies of
evidence’ or ‘positivism’” (Kirby et al., 2017, p.37).
This research aspired to leverage an de-colonial and anti-oppressive methodology in
several small ways. Firstly, through focussing on qualitative experiences of food sovereignty,
rather than settler defined, quantitative ‘food security’ metrics, this research attempts to
challenge ‘hierarchies of evidence’ (Kirby et al., 2017). It highlights the importance of lived
experiences and traditional ecological knowledge informing discussions around food and health,
and in doing so, illuminates the shortcomings of solely relying on positivist, Eurocentric research
metrics. Identifying science’s narrow scope, and that certain questions are ‘too big for science to
touch’ (Kimmerer, 2013) is one way in which anti-colonial scholars can ‘name and disrupt’
oppressive knowledge hierarchies. In Chapter 4, I highlight the inadequacy of science in
grappling with the questions posed in this research and the ideas of knowledge holders in an
effort to counter the aforementioned oppressive hierarchies of evidence and as part of my attempt
to leverage anti-oppressive and de-colonial influences in this work.
In addition to naming and disrupting oppressive knowledge paradigms, de-colonial
scholarship encourages giving “full credit to Indigenous laws, stories and epistemologies” to
combat the erasure of Indigenous contribution to scholarly thought. (Todd, 2016, p. 13). Scholars
such as Ahmed (2014) in Todd (2016) see the concept of “citational rebellion” as a promising
step in anti-colonial praxis. Citational rebellion includes giving particular citational attention to
“POC, women and others left out of many academic discourses…and… [familiarizing oneself]
with…Indigenous thinkers…[to] broaden the spectrum of who you cite and who you reaffirm as
‘knowledgeable’.” (p.19). Wilson (2003) echoes that listening intently to other perspectives and

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ways of knowing without ‘insisting’ on the predominance of one’s own way of knowing brings
them closer to enacting de-colonial research (Wilson, 2003).

3.2 Research Design
The following section explores the research design, or the ‘plan’ outlining how would
answer my research questions. I was inspired by (though did not fully operationalize) a
community-based participatory research design, as is discussed in the following sub-section.
3.2.1 Community-based Participatory Research
Kovach (2010) notes the interconnectedness of method, research design and paradigm (a
paradigm being, really, a methodology). Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is
considered a variant of participatory action research (McIntyre, 2008). Participatory action
research methods are seen as well suited for research concerning complex human-ecological
relationships and they’re particularly valued for “their capacity to acknowledge the multiple
contexts, stakeholders, and processes involved in both human and environmental systems”
(Parkes & Panelli, 2001, p. 87). While the extent and ways in which participatory action research
is operationalized vary greatly, the central tenets of participatory action research include action
and participation. Though participatory action research was an aspirational thread throughout this
research, this project was not focussed on action, nor did it leverage participatory action research
approaches. Rather, I explore participatory action research in this thesis as part of my learning
process as a research trainee and as an aspirational design for future research projects that are not
under the time constraints of student research projects (Kirby et al., 2017). Ultimately, I can say
with comfort that this project was a community-informed work: I learned so much from, and
remain humbled by the guidance that so many generous knowledge holders and community

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members gave me.
Participatory action research methods are rooted in and enhanced by many of the
methodological and theoretical approaches mentioned in the previous chapter, including the antioppression scholarly works of Marx and Friere, as well as feminist scholarship by hooks and
others (McIntyre, 2008). Thus, given its origins in anti-oppression, and feminist theories,
community-based participatory research serves as an appropriate research design to explore the
research questions.
Research is inherently political (Kovach, 2010) and thus typically responds to and serves
the priorities of those in positions of power and authority. In Community Based Participatory
Research for Health Minkler & Wallerstein (2003) see research as an opportunity for democratic
participation, especially for those who have traditionally been confined to the role of the
researched as opposed to researcher (Checkoway, 2003). While there has been a lot of work
involving both of these populations in recent years, farmworkers and Indigenous knowledge
holders are among those who have traditionally been excluded from research production spaces.
As such, this provided further impetus to strive for a community-based participatory research
design in this project. As previously noted, while I strove to engage community during the early
stages of this master’s through asking people questions about my project ideas before I began
any formal research process, I was not able to operationalize a community-based participatory
research design in this master’s project.
Intentionally avoiding extractive and colonial research approaches, this research was
motivated by and designed in line with a community-based participatory processes where
research is seen as a “shared story” (Snow, 2018, p.4), conducted with and for those involved
(Koster et al., 2012). Striving to do this research with and for community was important for me

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not only as a settler seeking to do socioecological-justice oriented research, but also as an
outsider and humble learner in northern BC geographies. To do this “with and for” research,
Koster et al., (2012) note the importance of steering away from traditional research methods and
attending instead to Indigenous research principles, which closely relate to those of communitybased participatory research. This entails recognizing that the community should be identifying
and driving appropriate research methods and should be involved in every step of the research
process: from the co-creation of the research question and methods to the sharing and
dissemination of the research findings. Lastly, it entails aligning research with the ‘four Rs:’
respect, reciprocity, relevance and responsibility (Kirkness & Barnhardt, 1991). As previously
mentioned, I was only able to partially fulfil the characteristics of CBPR. I feel that I respectfully
engaged with community in the early stages of this research that allowed for the research
questions and methods to be shaped by informants and involved knowledge holders such that
they were relevant for them. I feel that I upheld reciprocity through tailoring compensation to
knowledge holders’ wants and needs and I feel that I responsibly honoured consent and
confidentiality through providing all involved knowledge holders with a research information
letter and through member checking. Despite this, I wasn’t able to operationalize CBPR in all
areas of the research. Data analysis was not participatory, nor was the identification of
methodological influences, research design, findings, discussion or conclusion. My inability to
fully operationalize a community-based participatory research process was partly due to my lack
of research experience, as well as academic time constraints that are discussed later in this
Chapter. In Chapter 5, I discuss potential ways to mitigate some of the institutional barriers to
engaging with community-based participatory research with the hope that this project could in a
small way help inform future graduate research in this field.

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Community-based participatory research seeks to democratize the production of
knowledge to foster ‘co-learning’ and treat community knowledge holders as ‘active research
partners’ (Balazs & Morello-Frosch, 2013). While the central tenets of participatory action
research include collective commitment, reflection, decision-making, and action through
researcher and participant alliance that yields benefit to all those involved, McIntyre (2008)
explains that participatory action research follows “no fixed formula for designing, practicing,
and implementing…projects. Nor is there one overriding theoretical framework that underpins
[its] processes.” (p.3). Community-based participatory research has been operationalized to
connect environmental and health justice activists with researchers and is seen as a promising
approach to strengthen the ‘rigor, relevance and reach’ of sustainability, health and justiceoriented research. Particularly, participatory research approaches have advanced the field of
‘cumulative impacts’ of social and ecological determinants of health through providing impetus
to have research inform policy and decision-making action (Balazs & Morello-Frosch, 2013).
Given the ways in which questions around food are inherently interconnected with sustainability,
health and justice, and due to the documented usefulness of community-based participatory
research in supporting social and environmental justice praxis, I aspired to leverage CBPR as a
research design to engage with in this study, though I only engaged with parts of this research
design in meaningful ways as previously discussed.
Realizing the difficulty in fully and completely operationalizing the community-based
participatory research process (Castleden et al., 2012), I made efforts to overcome some of these
barriers, including making authentic relationships with involved knowledge holders, though I
was not successful in overcoming them all. As previously noted, I had conversations with several
knowledge holders prior to commencing any formal stage of the research process, an approach

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seen as covered under the scope of ‘community engagement’ (Kirby et al., 2017). Potential
involved knowledge holders were identified through snowball and purposive sampling (Kirby et
al., 2017; Patton, 2015). During these initial conversations, we discussed my general research
interest, spoke about whether my research might have benefit to their community, and if so, what
research direction would be most helpful. Community members responded with specific goals
for their community and ideas about how academic research in this area could help the
community achieve their goals. As such, communicating openly and transparently with
community members informed the research process such that it could be tailored to specific
community needs.
While this project in its entirety did not always fully adhere to a community-based
participatory research design, I see several elements fitting with a community-engaged research
design. In this way, the work is deeply informed by communities. By exposing and highlighting
barriers experienced by those involved with food sovereignty in northern BC communities
through qualitative analysis, this project attempts to counter dominant, southern and urbancentered, quantitative food security narratives. While participation varied in different stages of
the project, knowledge holders were engaged to help inform the research questions and methods
during the community-engagement phase and had the opportunity to discuss matters of
importance to them during the conversational interviews. Further, in the winter of 2022 I worked
with some of the involved knowledge holders on knowledge exchange projects that I discuss in
Chapter 5. On the other hand, theoretical and methodological influences were chosen by me
alone and, though all interviewees were given an option to review their transcript, there was
limited participation in the analysis phase. For a timeline of this research project, please refer to
Appendix 4 (p.137).

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3.3 Methods
The following section outlines the concrete methodological tools (methods) that I used to
address my research questions. Given that I seek to make space for interdisciplinary, complex,
and de-colonial understandings of the relationships between food, community, ecology and wellbeing, conversational-style interviews were an appropriate method to help capture holistic ideas
and worldviews. Conversational style interviews can also facilitate storytelling (Nagar, 2013)
that can act to counter oppressive structures and re-centre marginalized and community-based
voices (Aldred et al., 2020, Gislason et al., 2018). In this way I see conversational interviews as
being in line with the methodologies (interdisciplinary, strength-based and anti-oppressive and
de-colonial) that influenced this research project.
After transcribing the conversational interviews, I sent unedited transcripts (transcribed
verbatim) back to all contributors. I asked if they wanted to edit, remove, or add material in their
transcript. I also asked whether or not they’d like to be identified by their name, and if not, I
invited them to pick a suitable pseudonym. In follow up emails, I informed knowledge holders
that they had one week to respond to raw transcripts with their suggestions for changes after
which time (granted that they didn’t request additional time) their transcripts would be finalized.
One knowledge holder asked for a part of their transcript to be removed in order to not
offend people in her remote community. One knowledge holder asked that no excerpts from their
transcript appear in the final draft due to concerns about being identified in a small community. I
respected both requests. Involved knowledge holders had different preferences regarding
identification. Many chose to be identified with a generic pseudonym such as ‘knowledge holder
1.’ With this in mind, then, the knowledge holder/participant would be cited as ‘(K1)’. Others
asked to be identified by their real names. In the latter case, I used their initials in the interest of

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space. For instance, Andrew Adams of Hope Farm Organics is cited as (AA). These names are
spelled out in the following table.
Table 2: Knowledge Holder Identification
Acronym

Full Name

CB

Cameron Bell (Farmer Cam’s Foods)

AA

Andrew Adams (Hope Farm Organics)

I also sought to offer some compensation to honour knowledge holders and their
contributions. I sent all knowledge holders a ‘compensation menu’ with examples of the kinds of
honoraria that I could offer them (appended in Appendix 3). Compensation for some included
research assistance in the form of literature reviews and other communication tasks, help with
website development, academic editing assistance, monetary and seed donations for local food
sovereignty programs. For others, this was manual farm labour, or a nice book. Those who
insisted that compensation wasn’t necessary were nonetheless mailed a personalized gift to
honour their time. The gifts included snuggly socks, locally made candles and soap, and homemade granola that I baked.
To the best of my ability, I transparently and clearly communicated to informants and
involved knowledge holders that a significant part of this research project will entail me
submitting an academic master’s thesis. With this in mind, I also solicited thoughts on other
ways the work could be manifested. Some participants suggested ways the knowledge could also
be translated so it helps them and their community needs. These suggestions included helping
knowledge partners with creation of a provincially funded Indigenous food sovereignty report in
February 2022. As part of my contribution to this report, I met with knowledge holders to

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identify what parts of my literature review would be helpful and put together documents
summarizing relevant food sovereignty content. This method of soliciting direction from
participants aligns with knowledge exchange and integrated knowledge translation frameworks
that I will expand on in Chapter 5 (Thomas et al., 2014; Kothari et al, 2017). Further, Kovach
(2010) notes soliciting direction from participants is capable of honouring orality and
relationality. In allowing for sharing and active listening (Struthers, 2001), these methods set the
foundation for building strong relationships (Kovach, 2010).
3.3.1 Conversational Interviews
I used qualitative inquiry methods, including conversational, semi-structured, virtual
(zoom or email) interviews with community members and knowledge holders involved in food
sovereignty initiatives. According to Gaudet (2016) “conversations offer a form of learning,
teaching, and seeking multiple truths. They permit us to move beyond duality, to grow in our
knowledge and experiences, and to depart from compartmentalized concepts, such as Western
ideas of health and well-being. Conversations can also elucidate our understanding of colonial
systems and help move us toward the renewal of Indigenous thought and stories.” (p.57). In this
way, conversational interview methods may align with interdisciplinary and de-colonial
methodologies like Two Eyed Seeing that are further discussed earlier in Chapter 3.
Kovach (2010) emphasizes the importance of visibility and transparency in
conversational research, arguing that it is often covert rather than overt biases that are most
harmful. As previously mentioned, it is for this reason that I had conversations with people
involved with food sovereignty projects across northern BC, many of whom I now consider
friends. I feel that this initial community engagement allowed for ‘deeper’ conversations during
conversational interviews, which is supported by Kovach who considers relationship-building as

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necessary in relational research. Contrary to positivist research that prioritizes the impossibility
of ‘objectivity,’ Kovach considers relationships an asset in research given the ways in which they
create deeper moments of connection and sharing (2010). Virtual, conversational interviews
were carried out from October 2021 until January 2022. They were operationalized through an
iterative, open-ended interview guide. Examples of questions in the interview guide that were
informed by community engagement conversations include the following:
•

What does food sovereignty mean to you/ why is it important or significant for you?

•

What challenges have you faced with pursuing food sovereignty? Do you have any
thoughts about how these challenges could be mitigated and/or how you could be
better supported in doing this work?

•

How do you see food sovereignty as connected to place, land and watersheds?
This approach was chosen to foster flexibility and to better attain a ‘conversational style’

interview (Patton, 2015) wherein knowledge holders could guide the conversation. The interview
guide provided a framework and a ‘clear sense of direction’ for the conversation, while allowing
for adaptation based on the contexts, needs and preferences of knowledge holders. Struthers
(2001) suggests conducting research in a ‘participant-selected setting.’ Such an approach was
simple to operationalize in this research given that interviews were conducted virtually given
COVID-19 public health orders. During community engagement, I spoke with informants over
their preferred communication medium that included email, phone, and Zoom. During
conversational interviews, all but one knowledge holder chose to engage through Zoom. This
knowledge holder was emailed the interview guide and respond to questions via email due to
factors that precluded them from joining on zoom. The knowledge holder who formally engaged

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via email followed a semi-structured written format wherein certain question responses were
lengthier and more in-depth than others. The methods employed were thus informed by
knowledge holders involved in various stages of this research who had the opportunity to choose
which method of involvement was most suitable and feasible for them (e.g zoom interviews,
email correspondence).
3.3.2 Data Analysis
Data analysis began in January 2022. I employed qualitative inductive analysis to
highlight findings in the data (people’s stories) (Patton, 2015). I used cross-case thematic
analysis, wherein patterns provided the basis for thematic names (themes) (Patton, 2015).
Through researcher interpretation, thematic analyses have the ability to highlight “both implicit
and explicit ideas within the data” (Guest et al., 2012, p.9). I chose to use thematic analysis
because I was interested in exploring shared experiences or patterns of holistic health as they
relate to food sovereignty pursuits in northern BC and in exploring the implications of these
generated themes (Patton, 2015).
My ‘first pass’ of analysis took the form of a deep and thick familiarity with peoples’
words. This was anchored in interacting with individual knowledge holder’s transcripts via doing
the transcribing myself, and contemplating words and meanings as I went, as well as afterwards.
I used manual analysis (Tracy, 2013). I made this choice in order to spend time with the gift of
their time and stories that people gave me. My deep and reflective engagement with people’s
voices was an act of respect and of honoring their time, knowledge, reflections, and stories.
I analyzed transcripts by reading the stories and voices in conversation with each other,
as opposed to in a purely individual way. I read in an intimate, iterative manner, mapping out
common patterns, ideas, and threads and engaging in a reflective and reflexive practice as is

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recommended in qualitative analysis (Patton, 2015). I highlighted and then colour coded key
words and phrases that enabled me to organize them under broader themes. I documented ideas
for my analysis as is recommended by Kirby et al. (2017). After the coding phase, I re-read the
transcripts and refined the themes. I took familiarization notes for individual transcripts and the
entire dataset, paying particular attention to the ways in which they spoke to my initial research
questions as is recommended by Willig & Rogers (2017). Lastly, I took some ‘space’ from the
analysis for a week’s time where I worked on other parts of the research project. This approach
to analysis is recommended by Kirby et al. (2017) in order to “ensure that the analysis is solid,
steady and unlikely to change (p. 282).
The strengths of thematic analysis lie in its ability to provide the foundation for various
types of qualitative analysis and to be flexible to various epistemological contexts (Maguire &
Delahunt, 2017). I chose this method for analysis given its suitability to identify patterns in
peoples’ stories “that are important or interesting, and [to] use these themes to address the
research or say something about an issue.” (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017, p.3353). In my case, I
felt that thematic analysis was suitable to identify commonalities (and nuances) in peoples’
experiences of food sovereignty and holistic health in northern BC. The combined process of
transcription and analysis resulted in the five themes (Holistic Health, Intergenerational Wellbeing, Neoliberal Capitalism, Colonialism and Relationships) that I situate in relation to existing
literature in the next chapter.
Where necessary, and for contextual or grammatical purposes, I added additional words
with parentheses to the transcripts, as suggested by Patton (2015). I also went through and
‘scrubbed’ transcripts by removing any ‘filler’ words and phrases such as ‘like,’ ‘umm,’ and

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‘you know.’ This process is referred to as ‘clean verbatim transcription.’ It’s cited as a useful
approach to improve clarity, succinctness and readability (Soltani et al., 2020).
I made the stylistic choice to cite excerpts from transcripts in long block quotes. I did this
in an effort to maintain contextuality, as well as a means to ‘let the quotes speak for themselves.’
In Life Lived Like a Story, Cruikshank (1992) demonstrates how researchers can give primacy to
the voices of participants by engaging minimally with their stories and simply allowing them to
stand on their own. While Cruikshank doesn’t perform any analysis of the stories featured in Life
Lived Like a Story, other scholars, such as Patton (2015) cite benefits to engaging in qualitative
analysis given its power to “transform data into findings” (p.521). As such, in an effort to strive
for a balanced level of analysis, I adopted engaged in thematic analysis while preserving
knowledge holders’ words in long quotes.
3.4 Ethical Considerations
During the summer of 2021, I completed and submitted an ethics application to the
University of Northern British Columbia Research Ethics Board. As part of the ethics application
process, I completed the Tri-Council Policy Statement Course on Research Ethics (TCPS CORE)
that can be found in Appendix 2. In September 2021, I successfully gained ethics approval to go
forward with this research project. Please find a copy of this ethics application in Appendix 1.
As a newcomer to northern BC, I was consistently cognizant of being what Innes (2009)
refers to as an ‘outsider.’ Innes defines outsiders as researchers who do not come from the
communities with which they are doing research. Outsider researchers have been traditionally
favoured within positivist research paradigms under the assumption that coming from outside of
the research context allows one to hold a more ‘objective’ perspective; however, growing anticolonial critique of outsider research highlights the ways in which insider researchers may be

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better suited to respectfully engage with local knowledges (Innes, 2009). While outsiders may be
more likely to erase or overlook important insider perspectives and have a harder time gaining
trust and fostering authentic relationships within a research community, insider research is not
without its shortcomings. For instance, Innes highlights critique of sometimes heightened insider
research bias and how insider research can lead to fragmentation and solipsism. Being aware of
some of the challenges and benefits that come with being an ‘outsider’ researcher was crucial in
helping me navigate this project. Importantly, realizing my outsider position reiterated to me the
importance of stepping into the role of humble learner throughout this project.
This research was supported by my co-supervisors, Drs. de Leeuw and Parkes, who are
accomplished scholars committed to promoting health in northern BC. Anchored in their
interdisciplinary teams, I was thus already connected with some pre-existing partnerships in
Haida Gwaii, Terrace, Hazelton and Prince George, BC. In spite of this, and given my outsider
position, I understood that “getting in” [can be] difficult (Struthers, 2001, p.130) and that I
needed to work hard to build strong and trusting relationships. I also realized that northern BC
encompasses vastly diverse territories, peoples and cultures, including more than 60 First
Nations, four Indigenous-led health organizations, multiple Urban Indigenous communities, and
widely diverse settler groups (First Nations Health Authority, 2022). This diversity meant that
food sovereignty endeavours appeared and were experienced differently across places and spaces
in this geographical area. As such, this research was narrowed in focus to explore food
sovereignty in a smaller area within northern BC.
I was also sensitive to food-related traumas experienced by Indigenous communities in
across the geographies of so called northern BC, including peoples and communities
malnourished, people and communities being separated from culturally appropriate foods, and

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foodways being disrupted through the residential school system and being employed as slave
labour on farming operations, and people being purposely enrolled in unethical, cruel and
dehumanizing nutritional research with known risks including nutritional deficiencies
(Dashcuck, 2013; Johnson, 2021; Ostroff, 2019; Owen, 2019). Before engaging in any
conversational methods with knowledge holders, I familiarized myself with community supports,
specifically mental health services, in case these traumatic experiences are recalled in food
sovereignty conversations and the knowledge holders needed access to a regionally appropriate
list of supports (e.g. the First Nations Health Authority help lines).
I adhered to the principles of OCAP (ownership, control, access, and possession) in order
to ensure that data gathering, and dissemination is as respectful and ethical as possible by
sending back all verbatim transcripts to involved knowledge holders and inviting them to edit
them before I used any quotes in the thesis drafts (FNIGC, 2022). Further, in accordance with the
Tri-Council Policy Statement Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (2018), I
honoured the voluntary and ongoing negotiation of consent through written and verbal, ongoing
consent. For instance, after having given consent to engage in a conversational interview and
after having gone through several rounds of draft revisions which included her quotes, I
respected the decision of one involved knowledge holder to withdraw her transcript as she no
longer felt comfortable with me including her words in this thesis. All involved knowledge
holders were provided with a ‘Research Information Letter’ that includes project information and
consent protocols. I asked all knowledge holders about their confidentiality preferences and
invited them to pick their own pseudonym should they prefer that the information they share be
kept de-identified (King, 2020). In the case that their preference was to remain anonymized,
documents and data files were identified by their chosen pseudonym rather than their name.

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Unless otherwise requested, they were not identified by name in any completed study reports.
Knowledge holders were informed that they may request for all/any of their data files and
research contributions to be revoked, destroyed, or returned to them at any point before the
finalization of the final thesis report. Any information that might disclose their identity was not
released without their consent.
Further considerations around one involved knowledge holder having pulled back from
the research pertained to re-evaluation of themes and thematic analysis, which I updated to
reflect the withdrawal of the participant’s stories. This experience was a helpful reminder that
engaging with a complex community concerns is a messy process where relationships and
commitments are constantly being negotiated. Aspiring to operationalize community-engaged
research that honours reciprocity can sometimes involve time commitments for the researcher
that do not always translate to contributions to the final thesis, but that have benefits in terms of
relationship-building and contextual awareness. For instance, during community engagement,
some informants invited me to a series of community webinars that I attended and took notes at,
and which they suggested I might thematically analyse in future in exchange for their
involvement in my research. Further, I edited and provided feedback on one informant’s
PowerPoint presentation for a community event, and I edited and provided feedback on several
pieces of work completed by the knowledge holder who revoked their transcript. In spite of my
efforts to honour reciprocity, none of these people contributed stories that I could cite and write
about in this thesis. Nonetheless, these experiences were helpful learning moments where I
realized that despite my efforts to engage in reciprocal relationships, these efforts will not
necessarily always result in the kinds of contributions that I had expected given the evolving,
ongoing and always voluntary nature of consent in research. While their words are not reflected

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in this thesis, all of these informants and knowledge holders provided me with helpful insights
which undoubtedly informed parts of this work and helped me in my personal learning journey.

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CHAPTER 4: Findings and Discussion
The following chapter focuses on patterns within and selections from the raw data
(usually narratives pulled from transcripts). The chapter also includes discussion of those
narratives that emerged from the data. In the discussion these stories are linked with broader
themes and discussed in the context of existing literature and knowledge. The findings outlined
in this chapter address my initial research questions:
How does practicing food sovereignty affect peoples’ health in northern British
Columbia?’ and ‘What are the sociopolitical, environmental and cultural factors
that foster (or limit) peoples’ food sovereignty practices?’
By linking my findings and discussion back to those research questions, I hope to offer insights
about the conditions that affect the food sovereign pursuits, and related health experiences, of
people living in northern BC.

4.1 About the Knowledge Holders:
Findings and discussion in this chapter emerged from 10 in-depth interviews with diverse
food sovereignty knowledge holders across northern BC. Interviews varied in length from 20
minutes to an hour long and mostly took place over zoom. There was one email interview at the
request of the involved knowledge holder. The people who contributed to this research project
identify as representing a range of backgrounds and holding an array of experiences in local food
systems. They include farmers, mothers, cooks, settlers, business owners, Indigenous Land-based
and food sovereignty educators, social and environmental justice activists, employees of the nonprofit sector, community food coordinators, and those working at the intersection of food and
mental health. For an anonymized table with involved knowledge holder demographics, please

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see table 3. In line with an anti-oppressive methodological influence, women, people of colour,
and Indigenous food sovereignty champions were prioritized when negotiating which knowledge
holder were involved through conversational interviews. I also made an effort to be especially
flexible and accommodating to the schedules of people from these demographics. For instance, I
expressed willingness to extend my interview timeline in an effort to reach these folks and
facilitate their participation in the research. The extent and length of their involvement with local
food is varied, spanning from one-year-long employment in local food projects to decades of
farming experience to lifelong, intimate, kinship connections with food and Land. In spite of
their diversity, these people hold a shared, long-term, and deep-seated interest in food. 60% of
involved knowledge holders were women and almost 20% were Indigenous. All knowledge
holders live in northern BC as is defined by the Northern Health Authority, with the exception of
one knowledge holder in Bella Bella, an island on the central coastal region of BC.
Table 3: Knowledge Holder Demographics
Knowledge Holder

Demographic Characteristics

Name/ Pseudonym
K1

Woman, mother, settler, farmer, employee of community-based,
environmental-justice focused non-profit

K2

Man, cook, settler, employee of non-profit sector

K3

Woman of colour, Indigenous Land-based educator, mother, food
sovereignty advocate, director of non-profit

K4

Woman, settler, charitable organization food security coordinator,
gardener

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K5

Woman, settler, community food security coordinator national mental
health organization

K6

Woman, settler, employee of grassroots sustainability and cultural
wellness-focussed non-profit

CB

Man, settler, farmer

K8

Woman, settler, homesteader, employee of provincial farming
education non-profit

K9

Man, Indigenous farmer, father, Land-based educator, food
sovereignty expert

AA

Man, settler, father, farmer, food justice advocate

It is worth noting that while ‘northern BC’ as a geographic region can refer to jurisdictions
relating to Health Authorities and Tourism, northern BC in itself is not a ‘formal’ geographic
place, but rather a colonial construct. Geographic orientation to the concept of north is often
lacking consensus and very subjective (Pitblado, 2005). Definitions of northern often overlay
with concepts of remoteness and rurality, and in BC often refers metaphorically to anything
“beyond hope.” (Lonie, 2018; Snadden, 2005). In other words, “fundamentally, north is defined
with little or no rationale in the rural health literature of Canada.” (Pitblado, 2005, p. 165).
Given the Bella Bella knowledge holder’s extensive experience in Indigenous food sovereignty
and given the rural and remote nature of the community, in addition to the proximity of Bella
Bella to ‘northern’ BC, I wove Bella Bella into understandings about northern BC. This
knowledge holder joined this conversation fully prepped through email correspondence and

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research materials (a research information letter and compensation menu) that this was a
conversation about food sovereignty in northern BC.
4.2 Themes
Five broad themes emerged from conversations I had with the 10 knowledge holders. Quotes
offered in this section provide evidence for these central themes. I have ordered these themes
such that they work progressively from problems and issues to more appropriate ways of doing
things. This way of grappling with complex issues is in line with political ecology literature in
which scholars tends to first wield a metaphorical hatchet to expose power asymmetries before
planting ‘seeds’ which may provide alternatives to the complex issue (Batterbury, 2018;
Robbins, 2004). Further, given that part of this project has included contributing to a provincially
funded report characterizing Indigenous Food Sovereignty in BC (further discussed on p.48), this
order may be most helpful to inform future documents targeting policymakers and future
funders.
Theme 1: Neoliberal Capitalism centres knowledge holders’ perceived barriers to food
sovereignty as being mostly a result of neoliberal capitalism. Theme 2: Colonialism similarly
foregrounds colonialism as a key force limiting food sovereignty practices. Theme 3: Holistic
Health draws from knowledge holders’ understandings of food sovereignty as being inherently
connected with holistic health. Theme 4: Intergenerational Well-being emerged out of
knowledge holders’ shared goal to support the health of future generations through food
sovereignty endeavors. Theme 5: Relationships reveals that knowledge holders perceived
relationships and community connectedness as a key factor that fosters food sovereignty

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pursuits. Rather than having a separate section to discuss these themes, I present and discuss the
implications of findings together in this section.
4.2.1 Theme 1: Neoliberal Capitalism
In Chapter 2, I provide a brief historical overview of agribusiness as a manifestation of
neoliberal capitalism. In Chapter 3, I discussed the limitations of ‘alternative consumption’
narratives, which include food sovereignty. One commonly cited limitation of such discourses is
that they are vulnerable to being ‘folded into neoliberal projects’ (Agyeman & McEntee, 2014).
While some knowledge holders expressed feeling that neoliberal capitalism and big agribusiness
is a glaring issue in food production for a multitude of reasons, not all knowledge holders who
are quoted in this section used this language. In other words, while this theme came from my
analysis of knowledge holders’ words, I was the one who ultimately chose to use this language
for this theme, not them.
Many knowledge holders involved in this study expressed feeling that a lack of social
(e.g., centralized government) support for food sovereignty initiatives as a barrier to being able
to pursue food sovereignty. Most commonly, they cited limited or precarious financial support as
a barrier to being able to pursue food sovereignty. Many knowledge holders expressed a need for
increased and longer-term funds to be allocated to food sovereignty projects: these funds could
then be leveraged in community-centred ways. The following excerpts demonstrate this
expressed need:

[Barrier] number three is money, it’s expensive, even if you’re doing things very
inexpensively like we did here at Tea Creek like we’ve really bootstrapped things here to
get started, but it still costs us let’s say about 150 thousand dollars which, if you’ve got a
lot of money that’s cheap! But if you don’t have money that can seem insurmountable

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and … so we’re running into that challenge all the time where First Nations are like “yea
we want to do this” and we’re like “okay how much money do you have? And they might
say “oh $5000 dollars.” Like “Sorry you could do a bit more gardening, but you can’t
really get into food sovereignty”. …And… we actually have to produce an abundance of
food, it’s not enough to just do some small scale gardening and to say that you’re doing
food sovereignty—you’re doing a piece of food sovereignty …… Tea Creek grew
enough food to feed maybe 25 families worth of potatoes for the year and maybe six
families worth for an entire year but that’s stretching it so what we need for a food
sovereignty future just in our valley we would need around a dozen or more Tea Creeks
so that has to be part of the discussion and that isn’t really right now, people are like “we
have a sea-can that grows vegetables so yay food sovereignty” and no no no we’re like
barely scratching the surface so and that brings me back … to the money thing, we need
to look at investing serious dollars into regions to support getting food production back
up and running in a serious way. (K9)
They have funding, it’s good for a little while, the funding runs out, these systems break
down. (K8)
Another knowledge holder (K4) suggested that funds could be leveraged in their community to
help build infrastructure for food sovereignty projects:

I mean money is always a thing too … I’m trying to do some workshops and we don’t
have a kitchen where I work so like I have to go to other places that have kitchens and
that costs money and it’s like okay we’re trying to do good stuff here but that’s the other
thing is like being able to afford to do these things. (K4)
Other knowledge holders suggest a specific need to fund farmers:

It seems like there’s a lot of people out there who would be interested in growing food
but the economics of farming are so marginal that affording land or accessing land is a

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huge barrier…it’s just a very bizarre world we’re living in where all of these farmers are
part-time farmers, they all have other jobs because no one can afford that equipment so
they’re all just in-dept and on-contract to grow so it’s not even like spending all of their
time in a tractor, it’s just not even a connection to, so even though it’s farming it’s just
really lacking that healthy community component, when growing food is maybe
something you got into because you wanted to produce food and all of the sudden you’re
just like indebted to your machinery and to your contracts and having a part-time job as a
bus driver to subsidize your farming. (K8)
Knowledge holder K8 stated that access to land and the financial precarity of farming
served as major barriers to pursuing food sovereignty in northern BC. Limited access to land and
financial precarity led to fewer people taking up farming. Scholars and activists call this issue the
‘farm renewal crisis,’ which refers to the decreasing number of new farmers over the past
decades. Currently, farmers make up only 1.6% of the Canadian population, and only 10% of
those farmers are under the age of 35 years old (Smith, 2021). From 1971 to 2016, the number
has decreased by 62.7%, a drastic slide downward on any scale (Statistics Canada, 2020). The
fall in percentage of the population who are farmers is explained as being driven by increased
automation and the ‘expanding’ size of agricultural operations. But, this is only one part of the
story. This trend toward fewer and bigger farming operations is a product of the rise and spread
of free-market capitalism and neoliberalism, as it is in the best interest of corporations to
increasingly monopolize markets (Foster et al., 2011). Increasing farm size, crop concentration
and employing monocultural farming practices reliant on high technologies are all pressures
associated with neoliberal capitalism.
Reflecting such constraints on famers, several knowledge holders who farmed voiced that
operating within a highly competitive food market with little financial support served as a barrier
to them pursuing food sovereignty. For instance, knowledge holder (CB) describes how needing

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to operate within the confines of capitalism rendered it difficult for him to prioritize growing
storage crops even though these crops would yield better food security outcomes. He described
needing to do a balancing act of growing staple crops that will feed his community while also
growing more profitable crops that will sustain him financially but yield fewer caloric outputs:

It is important for me to grow the things that are profitable, it’s also important for me to
grow the things that are storage crops so that we can continue eating local food
throughout the winter and actually get calories in our bellies rather than just eating
microgreens and lettuce even though those are the most profitable things for me. (CB)
Another way in which the pressures of neoliberalism and free market capitalism make farming a
precarious employment option is through creating conditions (wherein the most powerful
agribusinesses monopolize the market) in which food knowledge is increasingly inaccessible and
where educational farming opportunities are limited. As discussed in Chapter 2, this is likely a
result of the spread of neoliberal capitalism that has led to dismantled social supports, dynamics
of hyper-competitiveness and the rise of agribusinesses which have destabilized social relations
in some small-scale farming communities (Sebby, 2010):

I think every other farm in the Northwest, or in the lower Skeena you might say, is owner
operated, is like mom and pop…they don’t employ people…we don’t have much of an
agricultural economy here, so if somebody wants to get into farming and they want to
stay in the Northwest and they want to learn how to do it, it’s like trial and error, it’s the
internet and books or it’s a little bit of volunteering… I also would love to see more
training opportunities … and maybe that happens through the college or through another
institute or organization but ultimately I think that it is a barrier right now that if
somebody says ‘hey I’m thinking about farming’ it’s like ‘K where do you go? What do
you do?’ (CB)

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While all but two knowledge holders spoke about a need for increased financial
assistance, they often described the purpose of this financial aid as being specifically to fund
food sovereignty projects. In addition to identifying a need for increased investment in local food
growing, knowledge holder (K1) identified a more general need for increased financial
assistance to help socially support community members interested in pursuing food sovereignty.
In other words, in addition to needing more money to fund food sovereignty projects, K1 also
describes a need for better funded childcare and other social services. This would help to ensure
that people have their ‘basic needs’ met, allowing them more freedom to pursue food sovereignty
practices and build more robust food sovereign communities:

First [barrier] is money. There’s a lack of investment into growing food in general. I
think that the government no matter what political party is in power should be putting
way more importance into that and supporting it more … and at the end of the day money
takes priority because that’s what runs our lives…. [Further] if there was more support
from the federal government or provincial government or just some sort of additional
support to cover basic needs, then there wouldn’t be as many dropped connections in the
food sovereignty community. (K1)
This knowledge holder similarly expressed lacking social support as a barrier to food sovereignty
and particularly focused on food sovereignty barriers faced by those experiencing poverty:

The way food bank Canada is set up is they require a lot of information about your living
situation and why you deserve to get the food … and I think we need to move away from
that model towards a more compassionate... if someone’s asking for food they’ve already
gone through so many steps to ask for food so I’ve been working on a little pantry here
trying to like give people access to food without [requiring them] to ‘prove their poverty’

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… I think with food sovereignty, like giving people dignified access to free food when
they need it is huge and the systems, we have in place like food banks don’t necessarily
do that. (K4)
In different ways, all knowledge holders identified pressures associated with neoliberal
capitalism as a barrier to food sovereignty. For instance, knowledge holder (K8) shed light on
how neoliberal societies foster hyper-competitive and individualistic environments where people
are exceptionally busy trying to manage their basic needs, and thus often have limited time to
devote to learning skills like farming:

It wouldn’t be that hard for communities to be food sovereign but everyone’s too busy
trying to pay off their mortgages and they don’t have the skills…they don’t realize how
easy it is. (K8)
Reflecting mainstream society’s emphasis on individualism, many knowledge holders described
a lack of communication, coordination, and collaboration within and between communities as a
key barrier to food sovereignty. The following quotes illustrate this subtheme:

There’s a lot of food security/food sovereignty work being done in this region and in
Canada at large really but one of the issues that’s clear is that they’re working in silos— a
lot of these organizations— so pursuing the work but not necessarily communicating with
each other…it’s this issue of overlapping effort and not necessarily an efficient use of
resources because a lot of organizations are trying to do the same thing. (K2)
The other thing that holds back a lot of these things is [that] there’s so many different
organizations and they’re trying to do similar things … so communicating with these
different organizations is one of the hardest things. (K4)

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Another knowledge holder attributed coordination and communication difficulties between
agencies, organizations and interested actors to the fact that jobs dedicated to supporting local
food systems and food sovereignty are often impermanent and unstable:

The nature of that kind of support and work is it’s shifting all the time in terms of
resources and that can make it challenging in terms of supporting those resources but also
for the people trying to access those resources because it’s not consistent, so I guess
consistency is part of it… (K5)
Given its emphasis on dismantling social programs and promoting social and
entrepreneurial ‘freedom,’ scholars argue that neoliberalism ultimately fosters an environment in
which individualist, consumerist, and competitive values are adopted in place of values of
interdependence, social cohesion and equality (Cohen, 2016). As demonstrated in the above
findings, individualism was reported by knowledge holders as a barrier to food sovereignty.
Competing with the ‘global food system’ (big agribusinesses that monopolize the market)
was a common barrier, as was expressed by knowledge holder (K8):

Another challenge is knowledge about food and where it comes from and how it’s
produced and how it should be valued … we’re still competing with the global food
system so people can be like ‘Oh I can go to the local farmer’s market, maybe I’ll get a
few things there’ but they’re still doing the bulk of their shopping at the big chain grocery
stores. (K8)
As mentioned in Chapter 3, scholars in the field see both material and discursive factors
as legitimate barriers to food sovereignty. While they can also act as material and financial
barriers, Agri-tech narratives and technological approaches proposed as food sovereignty
solutions can be seen as a discursive barrier to food sovereignty by failing to promote self-

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sufficient communities and by failing to capture relational responsibilities to Land and
community. As knowledge holder (K9) noted, Agri-tech initiatives should not be understood as
food sovereignty solutions given that they increase reliance on outside inputs:

And that’s one of the things that really has been bothering me about food sovereignty
discussions is seeing businesses that have one solution that they’re trying to sell across
the whole country to First Nations as ‘the’ solution to food security and food sovereignty,
the other things that really bothers me is [that] government agencies and businesses and
initiatives have noticed that food sovereignty has become much ‘sexier’ than food
security so they’ve taken food security initiatives that definitely aren’t food sovereignty
and they’ve re-labeled them ‘food sovereignty’ just because it sounds better and First
Nations leadership are saying “well we want food sovereignty” and they’re saying “okay
well here’s this sea-can that’ll grow food—that is food sovereignty… it’s a food
sovereignty solution” and that’s a huge problem because the sea-can or the greenhouse or
whatever they’re selling is not food sovereignty because it increases reliance on outside
suppliers and sources and knowledge and information… it decreases [reliance on] your
local food knowledge keepers. (K9)
In other words, given that food sovereignty is gaining popularity among scholars and activists,
this knowledge holder suggests that, in an effort to capitalize from food sovereignty, some
corporations and other actors (e.g., states at various scales) have begun to advertise their
initiatives and products under the banner of ‘food sovereignty.’ This can confuse communities
and lead them to mistakenly purchase and invest in products that will not be able to offer them
true food sovereignty. With regards to operating within the global food system, many knowledge
holders discussed the irony of exporting locally grown foods while offering technological
solutions to address food insecurity. In other words, the conversations I had with knowledge
holders seem to illustrate that true actions for food sovereignty fly in the face of, contradict, and

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can be hampered by federal and provincial agricultural efforts that have largely been informed by
big agribusiness for the last 50+ years. This is indeed aligned with the work of scholar-activists
like Shiva (2016) who sheds light on the ways in which agribusiness models work against food
sovereignty, sustainability and health. Shiva suggests that extricating agriculture from the rules
of international free trade and instead abiding by the principles of food sovereignty are necessary
steps to take in order to meaningfully address food insecurity (Shiva, 2016):

I mean why are we growing all of these apples so that we can ship them out of the
country? Same thing for blueberries. I’m sure you’ve read the food security report from a
couple years ago where they [asked] “how can we grow more blueberries and then we
could ship them away?” and it’s like I thought this was about food security… I was
working with Young Agrarians when that report came out and it brought many of us to
tears…the focus on Agri-tech and the future farmers riding the sky train and spending a
couple hours in a lab, it was just super disconnected and it was a report on Agri-tech
which is fine but call it what it is, don’t call it a food security project. (K8)
Another knowledge holder similarly discussed the irony of exporting locally grown food:
I’m originally from Williams Lake and there’s a lot of cattle ranches out west of
Williams Lake, most of that isn’t going to be sold locally, most often what happens is the
cattle get shipped [to] somewhere else and they’re processed somewhere else and the
meat’s going somewhere else … so even though there’s a lot of cattle ranches, that
doesn’t mean there’s more of that local beef in the local market. (K5)
As noted in Chapter 3, one way that food sovereignty activists see the global food system as
hindering food sovereignty practices is through food gentrification, wherein foods that were once
staples for communities are now being depleted, exported and rendered financially inaccessible
through the global food system. As noted in Chapter 2, Indigenous chef and food justice activist,

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Jared Qwustenuxun Williams describes how salmon, once a staple food in BC, has been rendered
cost prohibitive by being infiltrated and re-routed through global markets by big agribusinesses.
As knowledge holder (K2) noted:
Wild food is almost 100% shipped away overseas, to the south, that kind of thing, so take
the example of seafood, fish, shellfish, seaweed, and then another good example is
mushrooms… the Pacific Northwest is one of the best regions in the world for wild
mushrooms, and a lot of people don’t even know that … but they just get put on a boat
and get shipped away, so part of our mission here is to get some of that local food into
local supply chains and a lot of the time these supply chains don’t exist….[However]
even if you do divert some of that food that’s shipped away or even if you do make this
local distribution network, it’s never going to be as cheap and convenient of this
convenience food that’s in the grocery store... (K2)
Without naming it outright, K2 recognized the ways in which free-market capitalism and
neoliberalism limit community engagement in community food sovereignty endeavours (through
big agribusinesses infiltrating local markets and re-routing trade and sales networks). This
finding resonates with the literature reviewed in Chapter 2 including the work of Agyeman &
McEntee (2014), Bryant & Goodman (2004) and Newman (2019) that identify neoliberal
capitalism as a force that hinders just and sovereign food practices by disrupting Indigenous
relationships to Land and community (through extractive resource development projects and the
commercialization of food grown in Indigenous Lands and Waters) (Cote, 2016; Daigle, 2019)
and by compromising food justice movements (Agyeman & McEntee, 2014). Discussing food
sovereignty opportunities in his community in northern BC, he exposes the irony of being food
insecure with such an abundance of wild Land and sea food. In essence, free-market capitalism
and neoliberalism divert the affordability and convenience of food provided through the global

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food system, rendering foods from food sovereignty harvests feel out of reach for many. Given
how neoliberal capitalism fosters financial monopolies and offers limited social services to
support communities, it renders engaging in food sovereignty (that, by comparison, is less
convenient and less affordable) challenging. Another knowledge holder similarly noted how the
global food system skews the ‘real’ price of food:

I think one of the challenges is that food is so cheap yet so much… even where I live
which is really remote we can still get food really cheaply and I think that’s great cause
there’s a lot of people that don’t have much money but I think the value of the food that’s
grown locally can be kind of [skewed]…people don’t want to spend the money on a
farmer because you can get the same broccoli or a bigger broccoli from California so I
think because of that our sense of how much food should cost is morphed … and I think
that kind of limits peoples’ engagement. (K4)
Colonial understandings of Land as a private resource and corresponding extraction are
undeniably connected with neoliberal and free market capitalist logic (Kepkiewicz & Dale,
2019), and they also clash with longer term Indigenous relationships with the Land (Cote, 2016).
Extractive resource development was identified as a major barrier to food sovereignty practices
by several knowledge holders. This finding is consistent with the literature including
contributions from Cote (2016), Jonasson et al., (2019), Schmid (2018) and Johnson (2020) as
mentioned in Chapter 3. For example, K6 and AA stated the following:
Our systems of like coming in, shaving off the ecology that’s existing there, planting a
monocrop or just our preferred, very weak, very dependent systems …it’s failing now
and … I think [we need to ask ourselves] if we see soil as a substrate, a medium for
extraction, or [if] we see it as a living thing that we need to tend in order to create a
cyclical response… Do we want to feed the world through destroying ecology and
producing monocrops or chemical dependence? Or do we want to feed the world by

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empowering or reminding or just allowing people to subsist the way that makes sense
between those people and that Land? (K6)
There is a disconnect from those who come from multiple generations of settler beliefs on
land management from the reality of what this ecosystem can sustain in terms of
disturbance. We need to listen to Indigenous leaders on land management and commit to
the recommendations of UNDRIP. (AA)
Not only can resource development be seen as a material barrier to food sovereignty
(through contaminating and depleting traditional food stores), but also culturally, mentally and
spiritually, through severely threatening the health of communities that have traditionally relied
on local Lands and Watersheds to provide food. As knowledge holder (K3) eloquently noted:

I think I’ve shared pretty publicly in lots of different spaces that for me a lot of the work
that I do around food sovereignty is really deeply personal and tied to my mental health
particularly after the Nathan Stewart oil spill in 2016 I spent the emergency phase of the
spill response acting as the incident commander for Heiltsuk and one of the really deep
challenges (I mean there were many challenges but one of the underlying challenges) was
that the area that was heavily impacted by the spill was an incredibly sensitive marine
and inter-tidal environment where there were dozens of different food species that
community members heavily relied on and so amid all of the chaos and destruction and
uncertainty, there’s all this really deep grief knowing that it was unknown whether we
would be ever able to go there to harvest food again and it was a place that many families
and community [members] felt intimately tied to and their sense of well-being was really
deeply tied to the knowledge that they could go to that place and sustain themselves and
sustain their families and just the loss of agency to our relationship with that place was so
really devastating in the community and for me as the incident commander trying to help
that response happen in a way that mitigated the damage without honestly being able to
accomplish much I feel on the bad days … I came out the other side of that experience
with a diagnosis of PTSD, I had a really hard time managing my depression and my

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anger at just how unjust it was that for a community that fought so hard to take good care
of its Land and specifically spent so much time campaigning around tankers and energy
issues that in spite of everything we’ve done this spill happened. (K3)
Others such as K8 spoke about the threat of resource development to their food sovereignty
pursuits:

We just feel like there is nothing we can do, like there are these greater forces that are in
control and all this bigger system of where the money is going, and who is making the
decisions, the faceless corporations, it’s a horrible feeling and it affects our well-being
and health to feel like you have no control over what happening on the land around you.
(K8)
The unsustainable way in which neoliberal capitalism and large-scale agribusiness bears
on food sovereignty practice discussed in Theme 1 sheds light on the importance of countering
these pressures with increased social support, and values of interdependence, collaboration and
collectivity. As previously noted, many of the people who contributed to this project through
sharing their experiences and knowledge with me expressed a deep connection to Land and
watersheds, one seen as necessary for health and well-being. This intricate connection sheds light
on the inadequacy of capitalistic, technological solutions to address food insecurity and foster
community well-being. Seeing extractive projects out until there are no ‘resources’ left in
accordance with capitalist logic would not only yield (further) devastation for non-human entities
but also humans in more way than one, given the interdependent nature of health and well-being
explored in Theme 3 and in literature discussed in Chapter 2 (Buse et al., 2017; Redvers et al.,
2020; Redvers et al., 2021).

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4.2.2 Theme 2: Colonialism
As mentioned in Chapter 2, food sovereignty can be seen as perpetually under attack by
the Canadian colonial project (Cote, 2016; Daigle, 2019; Kepkiewicz & Dale, 2019; Morrison,
2020; Whyte, 2016). Although I did not specifically ask them about colonialism, there was a
strong statement among knowledge holders that colonialism is a pervasive threat to food
sovereignty. Several Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge holders explicitly acknowledged
the ways in which colonialism limits their food sovereignty practices. In other words, they
overtly described colonialism as a barrier to pursuing food sovereignty in northern BC. For
instance, Indigenous knowledge holder (K9), reflecting on barriers to food sovereignty,
explained how the dearth of knowledge around food growing in the Skeena geographical area is
a direct result of colonization. Prior to colonial influence, they believed that this knowledge was
commonplace for families in their community. They put it this way:
I was introduced to that knowledge; it completely shifted my perspective and it made me
hungry for more knowledge on like ‘how can we do this?’ And ‘why aren’t we doing
this?’ And finding out the reason that we’re not is that lack of knowledge, people just
don’t know… And again, that’s a colonial impact because if you look here, every family
had a very productive garden…—Indigenous families here — they had root cellars and
they ate their own meat, their own meat proteins and their own vegetable proteins and
they had surpluses that they shared with the broader community and even settler
communities that became poor, refugees from Europe—they were fed! (K9)
Another knowledge holder described how colonialism has impacted the collective mental
health of her community through violently disrupting Land-based relationships and food
knowledge:

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I think, in the small personal details of things, the biggest hurdle is just getting people to
buy into hope and resilience and food sovereignty I think we’ve had generations of
people who’ve been discouraged from being out on the Land, who’ve not maybe had the
same ancestral teachings that other families have had just because of how residential
schools and the sixties scoop have affected certain families in the community and there
are myths that you need to dispel about what you can do here, what you can grow here
and …I think the big barriers are just around building hope and momentum … since
contact we’ve been regulated away from our homelands and our resources that we’d
normally rely on and that has been very driven by racism and capitalism and a desire to
prioritize these massive commercial fisheries and resources extraction projects that have
really decimated resources in our territories and there’s so much important restorative,
regenerative work that needs to be done that industry is never going to do and
government is never going to do and I think what needs to happen, to really deeply
support Heiltsuk sovereignty and Heiltsuk food sovereignty is bringing that power back
into the community and I mean it’s always been there but I guess recognition of that
power by settler governments and other people who are in our territories, deeper control
of the commercial fisheries which we’re starting to see happen through direct actions like
occupying the fisheries office finding ways to exert our control over the outside forces
that are at play in our territory we’re doing everything that we can or we’re on the path to
do everything we can to support the integrity of our Lands and our systems and there’s
still a lot we need to do to exert control around what everyone else is doing here. (K3)
Scholars and activists see displacement from Land and disruption of Land-based relationships as
a concrete colonial impact that impedes food sovereign practices (Cote, 2016; Daigle, 2019;
Rotz, 2017; Williams, 2021). In line with the literature, K3 eloquently frames capitalism, racism
and resource extraction all as colonial influences that continue to impact her community mentally
(making it difficult to build hope and momentum around food sovereignty), but also physically
(through threatening the Lands and Watersheds that the community relies on for food).

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Another Indigenous knowledge holder explicitly named land inaccessibility as a colonial
barrier to food sovereignty in northern BC, suggesting the dire need of a true Land Back6
movement to mitigate this ongoing challenge:

The…thing that I see missing is land, a lot of First Nations were forced or pushed or
relocated off of crown land, you’ll see that in a lot of places like Kamloops is a prime
example, Kamloops First Nation or band was relocated multiple times and it was like “oh
wait no that’s good land? That’s good ranch land?” [They’d be told to] ‘move you off of
that’ and they got shuffled. Same thing in Vancouver and so many places when First
Nations were on crown land and that’s where you live and that’s where you get your food
all around the world, and they were constantly relocated into sub-prime, terrible locations
where you can’t put a shovel in the ground to grow food and actually there’s a video that
I can send you that isn’t published yet but one of the Nations we’re working with is in
that situation, they were relocated from prime soil, river front, up to a new location that’s
all clay and they can’t grow on it, so the next barrier I would say is land and in order for
Indigenous food sovereignty to have legs and get moving there needs to be a real Land
Back movement, a reconciliation movement, where whoever it is, whether it’s
government or private people, or a mixture, start funding First Nations to basically
purchase back their Land that’s agricultural or food producing. (K9)
Many settler food sovereignty knowledge holders also explicitly recognized and
struggled with the impact of colonialism that has impacted and limited Indigenous food
sovereignty. For instance, settler knowledge holder (K6) suggests that ongoing colonialism poses
a major threat to Indigenous food sovereignty through destroying staple foods like salmon, much
like colonizers intentionally killed the buffalo in an effort to gain control of Indigenous Lands as
is discussed in Chapter 2:

Land Back refers to a longstanding, multi-generational and international movement advocating for Land to go back
to Indigenous communities (NDN Collective, 2021).
6

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I know that I felt personally uncomfortable bringing agriculture and lotting it as like ‘the
answer’ into the work I was doing but I’ve since learned like there’s a lot of gray area
like cultivation is not colonial, it’s human, but …that the colonial system knows that if
you destroy a food source you destroy a people, that’s why they killed the buffalo that’s
why they’re killing the salmon I mean it’s a bit controversial to say right now but I mean
it’s true, destroying staple food is how you win a war, burning the crops as you
retreat…so I know there’s a really urgent and real fight in this. (K6)
Other knowledge holders, such as K8, more implicitly suggested the ways in which colonialism
impacts food sovereignty. In these cases, the knowledge holders did not overtly name
colonialism as a barrier to food sovereignty, but rather they discussed ways in which colonial
processes and outcomes can threaten food sovereignty endeavors. For instance, settler
knowledge holder (K8) grappled with the Eurocentric and colonial concept of ‘Land ownership.’

It’s a weird world where Land is capitalized. I think that is another major issue here is
land ownership at all…like land access is only a barrier because we have a land
ownership system and that’s a very colonial thing to think that this is your piece of Land
and you can do whatever you want to it, whereas in an Indigenous culture perspective it
seems as though Land is meant to be shared, looked after, communally, and when you
have healthy forests you have healthy people. It’s a thing we have to contend with, this
land ownership. (K8)
As discussed in Chapter 2, scholars such as Kepkiewicz & Dale (2019) and Rotz (2017) see
settler land dominance (enabled through colonial understandings of Land as private property) as
a major barrier to food sovereignty. Knowledge holders commented on the difficulties of
working with ideologically dissimilar economies (colonial and Indigenous), one operating based
on money where Land and food are capitalized, and another being a subsistence economy:

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[We’re] really facing this like: “well you can give me 40 salmon but I can’t give you 40
chickens because like I can’t actually afford that in my food economy” and so there are
different economies going on and they overlap and they intersect but they don’t actually
speak to each other very well or like carry the same feelings or values or bounty…(K6)
The above quote from knowledge holder K6 speaks to the colonial social context that bears on
food sovereignty practices in this human and ecological geographic context of northern BC,
explaining the ways in which food sovereign pursuits are overtly impacted by colonialism in
ways that they may not be in other geographic and social contexts.
In spite of recognizing the ways in which colonialism limits food sovereignty pursuits in
northern BC, especially for Indigenous food sovereignty doers, many settler knowledge holders
expressed a lack of clarity, and discomfort around how to mitigate this challenge. The following
excerpts exemplify this subtheme:

The challenges are myriad…so like how to divert peoples’ diets into fresh local food,
because convenience food is just that —convenient— it’s cheap, it’s everywhere, it’s
extremely unhealthy, and it’s just creating this massive health problem, not only
physically but spiritually too…we do grow cucumbers and tomatoes and it’s awesome
but also tomatoes and cucumbers mean absolutely nothing in a cultural context in Prince
Rupert, so we’re trying to bridge the gap of growing prolific plants but also choosing …
things that are culturally appropriate here as well, and … back to the point I was trying to
make earlier about trying to bring Indigenous plants into the garden…to do so ethically is
not so easy. (K2)
I wanted to be more in touch with my food [and that] has led to all kinds of other
opportunities for health and growth that I’m really deeply grateful for but at the same

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time I’m like how come I can access them but other folks here can’t, like where’s that
imbalance? (K6)
I know there’s a lot of Indigenous-run food sovereignty projects going on around the
province and I would like to do more of that here but our connection with… there’s kind
of two overlapping, or three, actually, traditional territories that we’re living on and all of
the people from those territories were really pushed down and there’s no reserve or
anything around here so it feels very colonial in this town, so figuring out a way to bring
some of that traditional knowledge back into the community would be really great for
learning about systems of food that we have lost … but trying not to put my own ideas of
what they should do about food …(K4)
Indigenous food sovereignty scholarship makes clear that food sovereignty practices taking place
on stolen Indigenous Land must be Indigenous led. As noted by knowledge holder K9, in order
to promote Indigenous food sovereignty, there needs to be real Land Back and reconciliation
efforts wherein First Nations are supported to buy back their ancestral Lands in order to be able
to pursue self-determined food practices. It is important to note that the Land Back movement
suggested by knowledge holder K9 is not ideological or symbolic, but rather a legitimate
movement that has resulted in land physically going back to Indigenous communities in the
Americas and elsewhere. Examples where Land Back has been operationalized include
Oklahoma (Silverman, 2020) and Bolivia (Murphy, 2010). As such, these suggestions are
realistic, and are not a matter of logistics but rather one of political will. The findings in Theme 2
reiterate the necessity of true adherence to UNDRIP (implemented as Bill-41 in BC) that
recognizes the right to Indigenous Food Sovereignty as is explained in Chapter 2.

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4.2.3 Theme 3: Holistic Health
In Chapter 3, I explored the inherent connection between human health and the health of
the Land and Watersheds that sustain life. I also discuss the ways in which Indigenous framings
of health can offer more expansive understandings that are not exclusively focused on biophysical health, but rather incorporate mental, spiritual, cultural and emotional dimensions of
well-being. Knowledge holders undoubtedly expressed these sentiments of interdependence
during our conversational interviews. They expressed diverse ways in which holistic health and
well-being is inherently and intricately connected with food sovereignty praxis. In developing
and finding evidence for this theme, I considered any description a health outcome that affected
whole beings or whole (human and non-human) communities as relating to holistic health.
Knowledge holders used words such as ‘whole,’ ‘holistic,’ ‘cyclical,’ ‘symbiotic,’ ‘connection’
and ‘interwoven’ when discussing the interconnectedness of food sovereignty and holistic health
and well-being. For instance, knowledge holder (K3) spoke about interconnections and
multifaceted ways in which food sovereignty fosters health:

I absolutely buy into the idea that, access to nourishing food is healthy for our bodies but
the act of going out and harvesting in the wild or growing it in our gardens is also good
for our souls for our mental health for our sense of community that’s big for our social
health it’s really just one of those things, it benefits us as whole people and as a whole
community (K3).
While acknowledging the bio-physical health benefits of food sovereignty, this knowledge
holder cites many other ways (including socially, mentally, and spiritually) that food sovereignty
fosters health in a holistic manner. In doing so, they move beyond Eurocentric, reductionistic and
neoliberal understandings of health explored in Chapter 3. Instead, K3 favours holistic and

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collective portrayal of interdependence between food sovereignty and social, mental, and
spiritual health. Indeed, many knowledge holders reflected on the ways in which food, Land,
watersheds and humans are interdependent:
Food is what sustains us. It’s what creates culture. Food comes from the land. Culture
will take care of the Land to sustain sources of food in it’s cyclical nature. Without
culture (food) there is no tradition, no connection to the Land, no ability to sustain
oneself… [my goal in pursuing food sovereignty is] To give people the ability to sustain
themselves with food, culture and health while treading lightly on the natural ecosystem
[and to] help communities become part of a niche within an ecological system of
symbiotic relationships through education and example. (AA)
In other words, and this knowledge holder reflects, if food sovereignty is done sustainably and
ethically it can foster health in synergistic ways and ultimately promote balanced ecosystems of
which humans are a part. Many knowledge holders touted the benefits of food sovereignty in
terms of ecological sustainability, but also with regards to social sustainability by fostering
community connectedness, unity and collective agency:

For me in the work that we’ve done here in Quesnel that’s continuing a big piece of it is
the connection, so not only the connection to the environmental piece, and that whole
system of things but also the community connection and the ability to connect as a
community around food and the food system and that inter-woven support as well as
cultural components that can come with that… (K4)
Knowledge holder (CB) suggested that ‘sustainability’ cannot be conceptualized in purely
ecological terms without considering human and social life. Scholarly contributions in the field
of political ecology support this knowledge holder’s understanding. They caution against failing
to consider humans in discussions about ecology. Political ecology scholarship rather fractures

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the false dichotomy between humans and ecology, being especially weary of the colonial
misconception that humans are separate from and cannot exist harmoniously with the rest of the
environment (Robbins, 2012). As knowledge holder (CB) put it, humans are connected with
every aspect of the environment, including soil, and these relationships are enacted in engaging
with food sovereignty:
Healthier soil that’s gunna give you better yields … and I value that, and I quantify it too,
it’s the organic matter content in my soils … I’m pulling something out of the ground in
order to be able to put something back next year, so I think that food sovereignty includes
that whole circle of where the inputs come from, are your farmers able to keep doing this
for the long run financially and physically and mentally and then how are the consumers
accessing that food… There’s no such thing as environmental sustainability. There’s
sustainability and that includes environmental, social, and economic factors. (CB)
In Chapter 3, I discuss scholarly work suggesting that food sovereignty is a vehicle for
cultural identity, which can in turn foster well-being. Indeed, scholars such as Martens et al.
(2016) and Robin (2019) found connection to identity to be a central theme of Indigenous food
sovereignty experiences in their research. This sentiment was certainly echoed by knowledge
holders during our conversations about the ways in which food sovereignty practices impact
health. For instance, several knowledge holders expressed the important connection between
food sourcing and cultural identity in their community. The following quotes exemplify this
sentiment:

You hear from the Gitxsan, the Wet’suwet’en, any nation you spend time with will say
like ‘if the food’s gone, we’re gone,’ … ‘if the salmon is gone, we’re not a people
anymore’ it’s that intricately connected…if a chief can’t care for his people on the
territory that he has because it’s been so ravaged like he’s no longer a chief, he has no

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status in the feast hall, he can’t provide…I really just see the access to food and food
knowledge there’s so many ways you can destroy someone’s access to food and they’re
all being threatened, they’re all under attack, if you can’t access food, if you don’t know
how to access food, if you can’t deal with the food once you have it, if you can’t preserve
the food then the culture, the Land, the claim on the Land starts to slip away and it’s
profoundly and intricately connected. (K6)
In other words, these knowledge holders draw no distinction between being food sovereign,
engaging with traditional foodways and existing and living as a people—all of these are
inextricably intertwined. It is important to note that they discuss identity as a collective
characteristic, which starkly contrasts neoliberal portrayals of identity, strength and health that
frame these concepts in purely individual terms. As discussed in Chapter 2, scholars such as
Bryant and colleagues (2021) note the importance of steering clear of neoliberal strength-based
approaches that fail to capture Land-based relationships in favour of approaches that highlight
collective, relational assets. In accordance with a collective strength-based framework, the
messaging of involved knowledge holders was clear: food sovereignty is central to collective
identity and strength that are always mediated through the socio-cultural context in which
community exists. Knowledge holder (K3) discussed how fostering collective identity in youth
through teaching values of Land-based connectivity can serve as a vehicle to protect ecological
health:

[With] the Land-based youth programming that our organization runs… a big part of
what we are trying to do is rebuild that sense of place-based connectivity and really help
youth to understand how their identity is tied to the places that they come from, how our
stories and our laws and the names that we hold and aspects of language are tied to
different places on the Land so that they start to see that as being a really deep part of
their identity and we have a really firm belief that if we can support our kids to really

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deeply love our homelands, they’re going to protect what they love. And it’s an indirect
way of ensuring that we’re raising a generation of leaders and stewards who are going to
take really good care of our territory into the future. (K3)
Another knowledge holder spoke to the importance of actively engaging in food growing as an
act of human identity:

There is a little bit of a desire in all of us to have our hands in the dirt, not everyone has a
passion for growing or gardening, but I think that that connection to the Land and to the
earth is really ingrained in who we are. (K8)
Essentially, this knowledge holder suggests that, in addition to through socio-culturally mediated
ways, food sovereignty pursuits can help foster holistic health through connecting us with our
collective human identity that is fundamentally tied to cultivation and food sourcing.
In Chapter 3, I discussed scholarly work in the field of ‘ecohealth,’ which provides
alternative framings of health and well-being. Through an ecohealth lens, one can emphasize the
false division between sustainability, social justice and health, and shed light on the inherent
connectedness and interdependence of these things. Many knowledge holders expressed how
food sovereignty practice has a ‘ripple effect,’ suggesting that by fostering holistic human health,
we can simultaneously and more readily address the major socio-ecological challenges facing us
today. For instance, several knowledge holders discussed the way in which food sovereignty
promotes human health and sustainability simultaneously through community members simply
growing food closer to communities:

Food traveling that far is not good for many reasons, and a big one of those is that when
food travels that far it’s losing a massive amount of nutritional value, they’re having to do

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things to the food while growing and transporting that’s harming it as well to preserve it
of course so I mean nutrition is an extremely important part of what we’re trying to do
and that’s simply addressed, partly, by getting the food closer to where you’re living.
(K2)
I think that at the most basic physiological level, something that hasn’t travelled a long
way is likely to have dropped [fewer] nutrients in the trip… there is less need for
chemicals to maintain the state of that food in itself so that it doesn’t degrade in that
transport and therefore it’s just more nutritious, and I personally think that’s where
everything starts…you need to have good fuel to run your day and without that
everything else comes in second term…so growing things close to you and having a
grasp of that economy and even the relationships built through these local growers and
providers…is the first step to building a healthier society in general. (K1)
Other knowledge holders spoke about the way in which food sovereignty pursuits can serve as an
access point to better nutrition and physiological health, which can in turn ripple to affect change
communally and ecologically:

Not only is diversity healthy for a garden, because a multitude of plants are working
together as opposed to a monoculture which is bad for a lot of reasons, but it
compromises the health because it makes it prone to attack and then the same notion
applies to diversity in the diet too… So …by shortening our supply chains and growing
food or procuring food closer to home, we are taking a stand against these monocultures
and massive farming conglomerates which I mean you don’t even really need to state that
it’s a massive issue in the food system that needs to be addressed and this can be just
naturally be done by sourcing our food closer to home. (K2)
As discussed in Chapter 2, scholar-activists caution against abandoning diversity in favour of
(both material and discursive) monocultures. In discussing monocultural farming practices, this
knowledge holder K2, quoted above, touches on the ‘many reasons’ that these farming practices

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can be harmful. Scholars are increasingly recognizing the negative implications that industrial
agriculture has on human and planetary health (Alders et al., 2018; Hathaway, 2016; Sherwood
& Uphoff, 2000). Scholarship in the field identifies a myriad of harms associated with industrial
agriculture practices, which includes the use of monoculture crops, (Alders et al., 2018; Brown
2018) chemical fertilization (Rhodes, 2010) and homogenous seed varieties (Frison, 2016).
These farming practices have been associated with topsoil depletion, decreasing biodiversity, and
polluted air and waterways (Kremen et al., 2012; Horrigan et al, 2002). Further, industrial
agriculture may negatively affect human health through facilitating disease outbreaks (Alders et
al., 2018) exposing farmers and consumers to potentially harmful chemical pesticides (Brevik et
al., 2019), and failing to help address global hunger, (Horrigan et al., 2002) and micronutrient
deficiencies (Frison, 2016).
In addition to providing an alternative to large-scale, industrial agriculture and the
associated harms mentioned above, knowledge holders discussed how having well-nourished and
community members can better equip them to address social-ecological problems:

I feel like simple nutrition stuff is one of the access points to feeling good in your body
which is one of the access points that end in just trying to have the wisdom in living
well…getting in touch with how you eat and how you feel in your body…. Is like this
massive revelation in the actual felt sense of sovereignty and then extrapolating from
there to our families, into our communities into our systems, I guess it’s just that it feels
to me to be one really core lynchpin into how any body or family or community can feel
health on multiple levels … if you can access good and beautiful and bountiful food,
there’s so much more that’s accessible to you and I’ve watched it in a lot of people, have
this cascade effect of well-being… cause I mean we can do a lot of work out there but
until our selves are well I don’t really believe we can create wellness outside of an unwell
self, I don’t say that in a preachy … ‘do your work or don’t do it at all’ kind of

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way…let’s do it all but let’s not expect fully functional, wholesome, democratic culture if
we don’t have that in our bodies. (K6)
While food sovereignty can foster human health, which can in turn foster socio-ecological
health, many knowledge holders saw it the other way around, feeling that food sovereignty can
foster ecological health, which can in turn foster human and community health:

There’s another component that I’ve only in the last year sort of come to grips with and
that it the importance of a healthy surrounding ecosystem, so not just a human ecosystem
which we’re focussing on so training people and building these skills to support food
sovereignty —that’s 100% needed— but also the natural, non-human ecosystem of our
trees and plant life and animal life so the story I wanted to tell about that: our forest here
at Tea Creek, it turns out it’s very diverse and healthy and somebody was asking me if we
needed to use pest control of any kind, non-organic or organic, and I said no…and then I
was asked do we need to put up bear fencing, deer fencing, to prevent wild animals from
eating our vegetables and I said no and people were shocked and that made me start
wondering ‘why?’ ‘Why don’t we need to use pesticides?’ ‘Why don’t we need to keep
the deer and the moose and the bears out of our fields in this location surrounded by
forest?’ And I was walking around the forests around here, seeing all of this animal
activity, dozens of moose beds, deer beds, all kinds of hawks and ravens and eagles and
raptors flying around, and I realized that we haven’t needed it because the forest is so
healthy that it provides, in the forest, what animals need so they don’t need to come to
our farm… I definitely observed …when we had insect pests come in… and non-insects
such as mice, we’ve had the predators come from the forest and basically clean them up,
so I almost applied pesticide once to our new orchard that we had put in and the trees
were quite fragile and they were being attacked heavily by aphids…I got some organic
pesticide and I went out and I was going to apply it to the trees and then I stopped, I
actually applied it to one tree and then I realized that these insects that were falling off
were spiders, and spiders are 100% beneficial, there’s no such thing as a bad spider
because … they only eat other bugs so I saw the spider come off and I was like ‘oh no’

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and I took a step back and noticed that the trees were covered in spiders that were eating
the aphids so I was like ‘okay,’ I stopped spraying and sure enough by the next day, the
spiders had it under control, and then you ask ‘where did the spiders come from?’ And
there’s this healthy forest around so I suspect that they made their way in and I haven’t
seen a lot of studies on this anywhere…I haven’t really seen much discussion around the
importance of healthy forests period. (K9)
This knowledge holder describes the importance of having a healthy forest in order to have
sustainable food sovereignty practices that do not overly rely on agro-industrial chemical inputs
(that include creatures that may be labeled ‘pests’ by some). Given the previously mentioned
potential health harms associated with pesticide usage on food (human and ecological), this
knowledge holder suggests a potential connection between healthy forests and healthy, food
sovereign communities. Indeed, many knowledge holders highlighted the importance of pursuing
food sovereignty within an ecologically diverse and healthy environment:

I think about soil health, I think about increasing the organic matter in my soil which
helps to secure carbon, … so there’s soil health and ecosystem health, we have a
pollinator garden and I want to put in a couple other pollinator strips just to help with
insect populations and there’s a pretty healthy population of birds of prey out here, and it
makes a big difference. We grow cucumbers, we grow tomatoes, we grow zucchinis
[and] a lot of those pollinating, flowering crops need to have some pollinations so it’s
good to have those insects around from a financial perspective too … you can think about
it in this larger holistic context, … I’m in this natural wilderness where you really
integrate ungulate populations …which is actually kind of good for me … I’ve never had
problems with deer or moose eating my crops…(CB)
If we are to support growers that are near our homes, it’s in our best interest to have good
quality soil to have our food in and that provides a healthier Land to provide for us. (K1)

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As explored in Chapter 2, scholars have found relationships with Land and community to
be central to food sovereignty, and, relatedly, holistic health experiences (Cidro et al., 2015;
Gilpin & Hayes, 2020; Martens et al., 2016; Robin, 2019; Risheq, 2020). This was a prominent
theme across knowledge holders’ reflections. For instance, the Indigenous knowledge holder K3
described how food sovereignty initiatives help to foster community connectedness and wellbeing in her community:

It’s been really beautiful to see the uptake in community, recognizing that we survived
the spill, survived generations of residential school trauma, the sixties scoop, poverty, all
sorts of really terrible things but there are still things that we can come together around
that are positive and that remind us that we have agency in our lives and that we have
control over some of the things that matter and I think it’s a huge part of my personal
strategy and my organization’s strategy to support wellness writ large in the community.
(K3)
Knowledge holder K3 ultimately suggests that community engagement with food sovereignty
can serve as part of a counterbalance to colonial trauma through a sense of collective agency and
security that can in turn promote healthy, resilient communities. Indeed, as illustrated in the
quote that follows, several knowledge holders spoke to the ways in which food sovereignty can
address food insecurity and associated poor health outcomes in communities that have
experienced colonial harm:

The more connected our communities are to our local food growing system— that can be
very healing, especially in these regions where people are really struggling, there isn’t
much work anyways, there is lots of intergenerational trauma, there are lots of Indigenous
communities around here, there are a lot of social issues and to create a community that is

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growing and producing its own food and has that security is really important I think for
people’s well-being. (K8)
Knowledge holder K8 thus explains how connectedness to local food can provide people with a
sense of security, and in turn, better (mental and physical well-being). They speak specifically
about unique factors affecting northern BC communities and suggest that food sovereignty can
provide opportunities for healing despite the challenges faced by people in these physical and
human geographies. Other knowledge holders suggested that community connectedness over
food sovereignty could in turn have a positive effect on ecological health:

One cool thing is just the coming together of people around [food sovereignty], that’s
what spearheaded the project to begin with was that there was a bunch of community
members that came together that said ‘hey we see this as a problem, how can we work on
this?’ And a lot of people [are] sharing that same passion and I think that that was
something that speaks to health on a broader sense in terms of the community piece cause
there’s an opportunity for people with a similar passion and drive and empathy to come
together and work with that in a different way which in turn could ripple out and affect
things ecologically. (K5)
Several knowledge holders discussed the ways in which food sovereignty can serve as an
antidote to individualism, and rather foster interdependence through sharing food and providing
mutual support. Having interdependent communities was reported as a factor that fosters
collective well-being:

There are a few elderly couples that will buy upwards of 50 dollars of my produce every
single Saturday and then go and deliver it to her sister or her friends or just sharing it
around to people who can’t get to the market or they’re concerned about COVID… I

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think that that builds a lot of social capital in the community too where you kind of create
that opportunity through food. (CB)
Knowledge holder (K1) expressed ways in which building community through food sovereignty
can allow for better social support. She particularly focussed on her experience as a new mother:

[Food sovereignty] contributes a lot to a sense of community, community is such a ‘fad’
word these days but as a Mum now it’s so important for me because there’s so much truth
to… what’s that saying? You need a village to raise a child or something like that? And
it’s true. Man, we live in a society that promotes independence, but I’ll tell you what: it’s
really hard to raise a kid with just one single person and a community can just help with
that and everything else too. (K1)
The narratives supporting the theme of holistic health being experienced as
interconnected with food sovereignty (Theme 3) clearly aligns with Indigenous food sovereignty
literature. As discussed in Chapter 4, interconnection, culture, community and connection to
Land and environment are central themes running through diverse Indigenous understandings
about health and well-being. My project findings, drawn from the words of knowledge holders in
northern BC, reinforces approaching such questions through the various methodological
influences that informed this study —including interdisciplinary, strength based, anti-oppressive
and de-colonial research. In contrast to reductionist, Eurocentric research frameworks, which
largely frame health in bio-physical terms, the aforementioned methodologies allowed for the
emergence of culturally-mediated, and place-based health perspectives where knowledge holders
perceived health holistically, collectively and intricately connected with food sovereignty. In
other words, my findings validated my methodological approach in that if I had been informed
by different methodological influences (e.g., quantitative, deficit-focussed) this project would not

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have been able to grapple with the holism and complexity conveyed through knowledge holders’
stories. Further, if this project had not been influenced by anti-oppressive approaches, it might
have exclusively featured the stories of a highly privileged, homogenous group of community
members (e.g., white, man-identifying farmers) which would have yielded very different
findings given the ways in which socio-economic status and culture influence worldview. As
explored in Chapter 4, my thematic finding reinforces that ‘certain questions are too big for
science to touch’ (Kimmerer, 2013). In a small way, my own narrowing of a theme from
northern BC knowledge holder’s words helped me to gain richness in understanding local and
Indigenous perspectives on food sovereignty through engaging in conversational interviews
preceded by pre-research and relationship-building.
4.2.4 Theme 4: Intergenerational Well-being
Significant amounts of research, as discussed in Chapter 3, makes clear that connection to
Land is a central tenet of Indigenous health promotion. Relations with Land has the ability to
connect past present and future generations—these relationships have, in other words, an ability
to foster health intergenerationally. The people with whom I spoke from so called northern BC
reinforced this sentiment. Many knowledge holders clearly expressed an understanding that
intergenerational health and well-being is connected to food sovereignty. Knowledge holders
used words and phrases including ‘multi-generational,’ ‘youth,’ ‘kids,’ ‘education,’ ‘instilling
values’ and ‘creating memories’ when discussing the intergenerational health impacts of food
sovereignty. One avenue through which food sovereignty was seen as promoting
intergenerational health was as experiential education. Many knowledge holders described how
their own education and experiences around food sovereignty drove their personal efforts to
provide educational opportunities (both informal and formal) for new generations of youth and

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their lives and communities. For instance, knowledge holder (K9) reflected on how impactful
their Indigenous food sovereignty training program had been for a youth’s well-being in their
community:
One of our youth, young women she’s in her twenties and came to Tea Creek, and she
only came here a few times, one of the things that really surprised me is people would
sometimes come for as briefly as a few hours and tell us what a big impact it had had on
their life which I can kind of appreciate …because it’s not just being outdoors and being
on the Land, it’s being exposed to all these potentials that you didn’t realize were
there…when I first started looking into food production I remember having a similar
experience when I realized how much food could be produced in a sustainable healthy
way on not a lot of land, it just completely blew my mind and changed my perspective on
the world and life and my own path. (K9)
Knowledge holder K9 describes the inspiring revelation they had through partaking in food
growing and realizing that food sovereignty pursuits have the potential to help foster healthy,
sustainable, and self-sufficient communities. Because of this, they express their motivation to
provide these learning opportunities to youth in their community as a means of fostering
intergenerational health and well-being. Another knowledge holder (K4) discussed the
importance of children being exposed to food growing as an experiential and inspirational
educational activity in a similar way:

I have a bit of outdoor space so now I can grow my own food so that’s led to [me] trying
to figure out seed security and saving my own seeds…that’s actually been a really cool
part of my job is learning about seed saving and there’s lots of knowledgeable people in
our community…so we’ve done some learning about that…and I think that getting kids
involved with growing food is such a powerful thing for them to be able to understand
where their vegetables are coming from …it’s just magical to see a seed that can turn into

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a food that you can actually eat …like planting a seed and getting a seed out of that on
the other end and seeing the cycle. (K4)
Describing food grow (from seedling to vegetable) as ‘powerful’ and ‘magical,’ this knowledge
holder similarly paralleled their own food growth experience with their desire to create
opportunities for youth involvement: both were a way to share these experiences that were
impactful for them. Other, knowledge holders discussed a desire to share food-related values that
had been passed down to them with the next generation, or as K3 so aptly puts it:

The act of harvesting and preparing food is very multigenerational, family activity…I
was out on the Land harvesting ancestral foods right from childhood and so for me the act
of harvesting and preparing food…it’s an expression of love, there were really deep
values of self-sufficiency and hard work that we built into that when I was growing up
and lots of teachings that were bigger than food of course embedded in the gathering and
the processing, [for] my grandparents in particular—that was an opportunity for them to
start teaching us about Heiltsuk laws and values and customs and [to] help us know how
to relate in a good way to our territory and understand our responsibilities and so for me
harvesting food was really a way into that and it’s something that I’m really excited to
instill in my little ones now. (K3)
On another level, other knowledge holders spoke about the connection between food sovereignty
and intergenerational health. Knowledge holders expressed the understanding that more selfsustainable food practices can better ensure that food will be available for future generations:

My priorities have drastically changed in the past 5 months because I have a little human
to take care of now, so my priority now is for my child to have food available no matter
what the global situation is. So, if I want to contribute to a reliable future for him then I
need to walk my talk and support local growers and even growing our own vegetables in

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our own backyard as a self-sustaining technique, perhaps sharing them with our
neighbours, that sort of thing, I think is important simply because what’s the point of
bringing him into the world and just dropping him? (K1)
I’ve heard stories here that like two guys go and they do their first goat hunt of the year
and they watch the goats and they count them and they figure out how many old ones
there are, how many babies there are, how many males and females there are and then
they come home with their kill and they share it out and they talk to their whole
community about what they saw and what the community can afford to take this year and
like that’s management, that’s cultivation and that’s a really close and beautiful
relationship with the Land that I feel has been really left out of our conversations between
nature and humans and that critical intersection of food…How do we get it? How do we
maintain it? How do we keep it coming back for generations? (K6)
These knowledge holders (K1 and K6) voice clear feelings about the inherent connection
between food sovereignty and intergenerational health: promoting sustainable food sourcing
practices fosters socio-cultural, community health for those living their values and providing for
their community. Food sovereignty helps to ensure that future generations will have enough food
and food knowledge to be sustained and nourished. Like Theme 3 (Holistic Health), Theme 4
(Intergenerational Well-being) is consistent with findings and evidence in existing scholarly
literature exploring Indigenous health and well-being. As noted in previous sections, Indigenous
food sovereignty champions face additional colonial barriers associated with leveraging
generational and ancestral teachings around food (Delormias & Marquis, 2018); however, Landbased practices (including food sovereignty) can serve as a key connection point for present and
future generations (Ratima et al., 2019). Food sovereignty practices can thus serve as part of
healing to colonially inflicted intergenerational trauma, providing impetus to create better, longterm supports for food sovereignty projects.

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4.2.5 Theme 5: Relationships
In addition to being an outcome of food sovereignty praxis, knowledge holders expressed
the ways in which good relationships with Land and community foster food sovereignty
endeavours. One tangible way that community connectedness fosters food sovereignty is through
accumulating shared food resources and knowledge that can be leveraged in times of need. For
instance, knowledge holder (K4) reflected on the ways in which community connectedness and
support mitigated the damage associated with the devastation of a seed collection in a wildfire:

There was a woman this summer [who] had like the biggest seed library saved up from
over the years and lost everything in the fire this summer in Lytton, but the cool thing is
since she had been sharing her seeds with so many people, people are now like growing
the seeds out and bringing them back so that next year she’ll have …those varieties (K4)
Another knowledge holder explicitly identified strong community relationships as the main
factor that mitigated barriers they experienced to food sovereignty:

I think the strongest thing has been relationships and that’s the thing you do get to have in
small communities…we have a really good relationship with our suppliers, some almost
friendships with them and they look out for us and we try our best to treat them
respectfully and respect their time and their effort and definitely as a team we wouldn’t
have gotten through the challenges that we faced with weather and infrastructure without
that commitment to ‘I’ er done’ and to each other so the community has also been
helpful… relationships have been the highlight and the core point of it all. (K6)
In addition to feeling that existing communal relationships foster food sovereignty, many
knowledge holders felt that increased collaboration would further help promote food sovereignty
in this geographic and socio-political climate. The following quotes illustrate this:

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We need more skills around farming, and we need collaboration, we need people to come
together and say: ‘Where are the gaps?’ ‘What crops are you going to grow’ ‘What crops
are you going to grow?’ ‘What machinery could we potentially share?’ ‘What sales
channels could we either collaborate on or could we divide and conquer?’ (CB)
Research can be shared, resource can be shared, so something as simple as here on our
urban farm, we could take that funding that we get and have an equipment tool shed that
people could just come use, they could sign it out and come use it instead of multiple
organizations buying the same piece of equipment that they use once per season… a lot
of this stuff is necessary, but you don’t need to use it all the time. (K2)
In addition to human relationships, many knowledge holders described healthy relationships with
Land as a factor that fosters food sovereignty in northern BC. For instance, an Indigenous
knowledge holder described how revitalizing ancestral relationships with Land can foster food
sovereignty practices in her community:

I really like to remind people that we have those deep relationships and that deep
knowledge throughout the territory, and I think it’s an important aspiration for us as a
community to rebuild that sense of connectivity and intimacy throughout the whole
territory too… and I’ve been reintroducing my whole family to ancestral foods that aren’t
commonly eaten anymore. (K3)
Knowledge holders such as K6 described the deep and intimate connection to Land that they
observed in their community. They describe these relationships as being central to food
sovereignty.

You need to be more dependent in order to be super connected [with Land], if it’s a
choice it’s not quite as deep, and the more that I pay attention the more that [I realize] the

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richness of the food, the wild… the food that was here and accessible on the territories,
that has been basically the backing of the economy of this place for thousands and
thousands of years, that’s the capital, that’s the security, and so that’s been the basis of
the culture. (K6)
The above quote from K6 is specific to northern BC geographies in that it sheds light on the
cultural dynamics (deep interdependent relationships with Land and community) and ecology
(rich plant food) that are unique to this place and have been customary for thousands of years.
The findings in Theme 5 are clearly aligned with the literature: there is a deep connection
between Land, community, food and health (Buse et al., 2018, Ratima et al., 2019; Redvers et
al., 2020; Redvers, 2021). As discussed in Chapter 2, scholars suggest that food is constituted by
Land and community (Cidro et al., 2015; Gilpin & Hayes, 2020; Martens et al., 2016; Robin,
2019; Risheq, 2020), highlighting the importance of nurturing these relationships in order to
foster food sovereignty practice. The findings from Theme 5 reaffirms current scholarship
suggesting that relationships to Land and people foster food sovereignty practices. Given that
neoliberalism limits food sovereignty through fostering an individualistic and hyper-competitive
environment (as shown in Theme 1), Theme 5 provides further impetus to allocate resources to
social supports and community-driven projects, particularly as they relate to food sovereignty.

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4.3 Emerging Finding: Northern, Rural and Remote BC Barriers
After pulling a series of specific themes from the stories from the knowledge holders I
spoke with, it became apparent that there was an overarching consideration specific to pursuing
food sovereignty in northern BC. I came to realize that this emerging finding cannot be neatly
summarized as a theme, but rather cuts across all themes given its specificity to northern BC
geographies in which this research took place. In the following section I quote the words of
knowledge holders to illustrate this emerging finding.
Scholars such as Mitchell-Foster & Gislason (2016) stress the importance that local lived
experiences inform health research given the complex and constantly changing nature of socioecological contexts. Though struggles to integrate community wisdom with technical
“mainstream practice” persists (p. 174), Mitchell-Foster & Gislason (2016) encourage health
scholars to grapple with lived experiences in order to create more nuanced and relevant research
that is situated in real-world realities. Attention to non-technical, nuanced, experiential and tacit
community knowledge is especially important given that micro socioecological scales are
systematically excluded in macro-logics.
Many knowledge holders spoke about facing unique conditions related to living in
northern BC. The conditions discussed pertained to both physical and human northern BC
geographies. For instance, many considered living in northern BC to pose unique risks to food
security, a consideration that increased their impetus to pursue food sovereignty given the
tenuous supply chain and the large physical distance that food must travel from urban centres:

Prince Rupert is really at the end of the line here, our food is coming from so far away
and that’s true for even where you are as well but we’re even that much more removed
and then we have this issue here of outlying communities … smaller communities with

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much more difficult accessibility issues, some of them only accessible by boat, some of
them accessible by float plane … so they’re even farther removed but like our food
comes here, perhaps the food will come from a ferry or boat from the lower west coast,
and it’s creating this issue...not only are things like the pandemic creating supply chain
disruptions, but even taking that out of account is like food traveling that far is not good
for many reasons. (K2)
Our community is really remote, and we’re really influenced by the supply chain … [For
instance] this week [because of the recent flooding] we haven’t been able to get any food
trucks to our grocery store so there are no vegetables or fruit in the grocery store or eggs
so I think that’s top of mind right now…our grocery store is so small that it doesn’t really
have storage for like frozen food even if they do a shipment of veggies … what’s on the
shelves is what they have …(K4)
Others spoke to the unique demographic makeup of northern BC geographies and the ways in
which resources being concentrated in southern, urban environments, creates a situation wherein
there’s less demand and infrastructure in northern BC communities for food sovereignty:

It would absolutely be different in an urban centre, there are microgreen businesses that
employ multiple people, year-round, just growing microgreens and you can do that if
you’re living in a city with a million people because you’ve got a dozen restaurants
buying your microgreens every single week and you might have enough chefs that you
can grow basil microgreens and amaranth but that’s not me…there’s just not enough
people here to make that work (CB)
Grain doesn’t grow very well up here so we couldn’t source organic, and if anything goes
wrong with the farmer’s crop we’re screwed, I had to import protein crops like soy which
was incredibly expensive because we can’t grow much rich food up here so we’ve been
looking into other alternative options… whereas if you’re in the South or the States or

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something you can just pick a grain buyer, ask them to make a ration, they’re all certified,
they know how to do it… (K6)
On the other hand, knowledge holder (K8) spoke to the unique food sovereignty opportunities
that northern BC geographies can provide:

Vertical growing indoors…these ideas that are super energy-intensive, [they] rely on a lot
of supplies and plastic and unsustainable products when we have land, lots of land, that’s
perfectly well-suited to either growing food or foraging and collecting food so the idea of
vertical indoor farming maybe [makes sense] in the middle of Tokyo or Mexico City or
places where there isn’t enough land to grow food for that population … but to go in
BC…to put that kind of energy into food production is just I think gimmicky. (K8)
In Chapter 2 (pages 21-27), I review cases and existing research of food sovereignty in
Canada. Despite some of this research having taken place in northern geographies (Kamal et al.,
2015; Pawlowska-Mainville, 2020), the large majority of Canada-specific cases that I reviewed
in the literature focussed on urban centres. In a study with Poplar River First Nation in northern
Manitoba, Pawlowska-Mainville discusses some food sovereignty challenges associated with
remote living, particularly the high cost of grocery store food items. While issues with the
globalized food system supply chain were undoubtedly echoed by knowledge holders in my
research (as demonstrated by the quotes in themes 1 and 2), pursuing food sovereignty initiatives
outside of the global food system presented unique opportunities and challenges that are specific
to northern BC itself. As previously stated, this finding is embodied in all of the previously
outlined themes but is important to consider in itself given the dearth of literature pertaining to
food sovereignty in northern BC geographies.

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Along this vein and given unique geographical conditions that bear on food sovereignty
practices, many knowledge holders stressed the importance of not adhering to ‘blanket’ food
sovereignty approaches:

It’s a hard thing to prescribe a solution…saying like ‘here’s your recipe to food
sovereignty’ because the ecological and cultural diversity is just so massive and beyond
that, economic diversity so a food sovereignty solution in Vancouver would look
drastically different from one here [which] would look drastically different from one in
Yellowknife, or somewhere in Asia …so that’s why at Tea Creek we’ve been really
cautious and clear that we don’t prescribe one solution as a ‘fix all’ and that’s one of the
things that really has been bothering me about food sovereignty discussions is seeing
businesses that have one solution that they’re trying to sell to across the whole country to
First Nations as ‘the’ solution to food security and food sovereignty. (K9)
Knowledge holder K9 draws attention to the fact that adopting a ‘one size fits all’ approach to
food sovereignty can lead to communities allocating resources in ways that that are not
optimized and, in some cases, do not support community food sovereignty at all, as is illustrated
by the following story:

I just heard a story of a First Nation here in BC that was sold something like seven
greenhouses as a ‘food sovereignty’ solution and they got them, put them up and they
require water and power, and they have no water and power so they’re not able to use
them so that’s definitely not food sovereignty— it’s the opposite (K9).
Northern BC community needs being poorly understood and addressed was something that many
knowledge holders cited as a challenge to pursing food sovereignty in this place. For instance,

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knowledge holder CB discussed the ways in which some research is misaligned with the needs of
northern BC communities:

I got a call last week from somebody out of UBC who’s working with an artisan farmer’s
market association down there and they’re looking into how the Skeena Valley producers
could do collective marketing to sell products to Vancouver and I’m like “what do you
think this is? That’s not going to happen.” But… it’s just academics and people in
Vancouver that don’t understand what’s happening up North. (CB)
Given the limited literature pertaining to food sovereignty conditions specific to northern
BC geographies, in addition to the stories shared by knowledge holders where institutions failed
to address their food sovereignty needs, I identify this as a gap in the literature that is in dire need
of addressal. While this research has just scratched the surface, I see it as contributing to this gap
by creating awareness and making the case for further research and evidence-based food policy
that comes from listening to the lived experiences of those working in local food in northern,
rural, remote and Indigenous geographies.
As discussed in Chapter 1, Canada-specific food sovereignty research is largely focussed
on southern and urban geographies. Given the previously mentioned unique conditions facing
those pursuing food sovereignty in northern BC, more research focussed on the needs of food
sovereignty champions in northern and Indigenous BC communities would help to support these
people that are among the hardest hit by challenges related to food insecurity (Council of
Canadian Academies, 2014).

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4.4. Conclusion to Findings and Discussion
Through an exploration of five themes pulled from stories shared with me, this chapter
discussed the many ways in which peoples’ experiences of health are connected to their
involvement with food sovereignty initiatives in northern BC. Specifically, the chapter identified
that neoliberalism, free-market capitalism and colonialism limit peoples’ ability to engage with
food sovereignty in this socio-political, cultural and environmental context, whereas community
health and relationships foster and uplift food sovereignty practices. The chapter details my
finding that holistic and intergenerational health are intricately interconnected with food
sovereignty endeavours. Themes 1-5 discussed in this chapter largely align with the literature
and written and spoken voices reviewed in Chapter 2. Lastly, this chapter highlights emerging
findings that begin to address a gap in the literature around northern BC food sovereignty
experiences. In other words, the emerging findings pertaining to northern BC add new insights to
existing food sovereignty literature and signal to future researchers a need to further explore
community experts’ experiences in northern BC geographies. In the final chapter, I will discuss
limitations of this research, personal reflections, and suggestions for future research in the field.

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CHAPTER 5: Synthesis and Conclusion

This chapter offers a synthesis and concluding thoughts pertaining to the research
questions, aims, and findings of this study. In the first section, I provide a synthesis of the
findings and discussion in relation to my initial research questions and aims. Specifically, I
explore the findings and discussion from Chapter 4 with the goal of identifying northern BC food
sovereignty leaders’ perceptions or experiences of health as it relates to food sovereignty, the
challenges and mitigators that they face when engaging with food sovereignty, and the ways in
which they could be better supported in pursuing food sovereignty initiatives. I describe the
concrete ways in which the stories of knowledge holders helped me to answer my research
questions. Next, I highlight personal reflections and thoughts about this master’s project and
learning journey, specifically focussing on how this thesis facilitated personal growth and
instilled in me values of humility, curiosity and accountability. I then discuss this project’s
limitations and areas needing improvement with a particular focus on confines imposed by the
colonial academy. Finally, I offer suggestions for future research in the field that may work to
address the limitations of this study, including arts-based and narrative approaches, and more
focussed action-oriented research.

5.1 Synthesis of Findings
The findings discussed in the previous chapter can be seen as providing answers to or
evidence to respond to my initial research questions. The discussion from Theme 3 and 4 address
research question #1—How does practicing food sovereignty affect peoples’ health in northern
British Columbia? Theme 3 and 4 address this question by demonstrating the inherent

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connection between holistic health and food sovereignty pursuits, and the direct impact of food
sovereignty practice on intergenerational well-being in northern BC respectively. Through their
stories, knowledge holders conveyed that the connection between practicing food sovereignty
and holistic, intergenerational health is inseparable. As is consistent with understandings of
holistic health in ecohealth and Indigenous health scholarship discussed in Chapter 2 (Buse et al.,
2018; Parkes, 2015, many of the involved knowledge holders drew no distinction between the
health of humans and non-human entities, nor the health of past, present or future generations.
Similarly in line with integrative and Indigenous indicators of well-being, many knowledge
holders described health as something that cannot exist outside of a just or sustainable society
(Buse, 2018; Parkes 2015), one in which food sovereignty practices can thrive and, in turn, can
further promote justice, sustainability and health through food.
The discussion that emerged from themes 1, 2 and 5 respond to research question #2—
What are the sociopolitical, environmental and cultural factors that foster (or limit) peoples’ food
sovereignty practices? Specifically, the findings expressed in themes 3 and 4 expose how the
forces of neoliberal capitalism and colonialism limit people’s food sovereignty endeavours in
northern BC, whereas Theme 5 suggests that relationships with Land and community foster food
sovereignty in this place. While most knowledge holders did not overtly critique neoliberal
capitalism or colonialism as a barrier to food sovereignty, they unanimously described the
various conditions created by these social forces as being things that stifle their food sovereignty
practices. Limited social support from public institutions, individualism and competitiveness,
resource extraction, and competing with the global food system are all conditions that are created
by these political, ideological and economic processes. On the other hand, Theme 5—
relationships— speaks to knowledge holders’ perception that Land-based community

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connectedness fosters food sovereign practices through sharing, relating to territory and fierce
collaboration. Theme 5 can thus be seen as inextricably linked with Theme 1 and 2, given that
relational ways of being with community and ecology serve as an antidote to the individualistic
and disconnected climate promoted by neoliberal capitalism and colonialism.
Neoliberal capitalism and colonialism are often framed in the literature as patriarchal
influences that have manifested the objectification and subordination of women and nature
(Campbell, 2014; Guerrero, 2003; Portman, 2018). The themes discussed in Chapter 4 can be
seen as reflecting my attention to gender throughout this project. Theme 1: Neoliberal
Capitalism, and Theme 2: Colonialism, speak to patriarchal processes that knowledge holders
described as limiting their food sovereignty practices in various ways. Conceptualizations of
Land as ‘property’ or ‘resource’ and related extractive projects exemplify manifestations of
patriarchal ways of knowing which bear on food sovereignty pursuits in northern BC.
Related to eco-feminist arguments put forth in the literature over the past several decades,
scholars and activists suggest that food justice activism must be attentive to feminist issues
(Morrison, 2020; Mukherjee, 2013; Patel, 2010; Portman, 2018; Shiva, 1993). Similarly, decolonial scholarship has positioned (w)holistic ways of knowing as feminist approaches that
reject colonial, reductionist, static binaries (Tai, 2016). Theme 3: Holistic Health, Theme 4:
Intergenerational Well-being, and Theme 5: Relationships all reflect holistic ways of knowing,
which more closely align with Indigenous, feminist, regenerative-oriented paradigms as opposed
to Western, patriarchal, production-oriented paradigms (Morrison, 2020). Paying particular
attention to, and highlighting, feminine practices of knowledge in my project’s analysis and
findings demonstrates a small way in which my research promotes de-colonial thought and
pushes against oppressive gender hierarches.

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In essence, all themes discussed in Chapter 4 are connected: Neoliberal capitalism and
colonialism infringe on peoples’ ability to pursue food sovereignty in northern BC. Relationships
with Land and community, however, actively push back against these socio-political forces, and,
in turn, can foster food sovereign practices in this place. Given that relationships help foster food
sovereignty—seen as interconnected with holistic health and intergenerational well-being— they
can thus help promote the health and well-being of humans and non-humans in northern BC as
they have in the past, as they are today and as they can for future generations.

5.2 Knowledge Exchange
For scholars in the field of knowledge exchange in Indigenous health research, such as
Morton Ninomiya and colleagues, effective and appropriate knowledge translation is about
sharing knowledge that respectfully engages with local and context specific knowledges. This is
especially important, they argue, in Indigenous health research given that both Indigenous people
and Indigenous knowledges have been neglected and erased in academic literature. Although
many scholars understand knowledge translation (KT) as a process that involves mutually
created knowledge that is mediated by social and environmental contexts (Thomas et al. 2014),
KT approaches can fail to effectively align with values of Indigenous knowledge sharing such as
the ‘four Rs of research’ (relevance, respect, responsibility, reciprocity) and the principles of
‘OCAP’ (ownership, control, access and protection) (Morton Ninomiya et al., 2017).
Scholars and knowledge users identifying such shortcomings of knowledge translation
approaches has led to the increasing attention to integrated knowledge translation (IKT) as a
potential alternative strategy to better usefulness and impact of research (Kothari et al., 2017).
IKT sees knowledge users as having “unique expertise pertaining to the research topic, including

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knowledge of the context and the potential for implementation.” (Kothari et al, 2017, p.299).
Further, IKT involves knowledge users as partners in research, and is capable of yielding
outcomes that are more likely to be relevant and helpful to knowledge users (CIHR, 2015). In
this way, IKT can be seen as connected with CBPR methodology given its emphasis on cocreating knowledge with and for the communities that are intended to benefit from it (CIHR,
2015).
As mentioned in chapter 3, I had ongoing conversations with knowledge holders
throughout the research process about potential ways that this research could help them and their
communities. These conversations led to me ultimately being presented with a knowledge
exchange opportunity where one of the involved knowledge holders reached out to me to
contribute to a government-funded report they were writing on Indigenous food sovereignty in
BC. We communicated via zoom and email about how I could best help with this and, drawing
on things I had learned through my master’s thesis project (particularly during my literature
review and community engagement stages), I created and shared some content with them for this
policy report. Through having these ongoing conversations and developing authentic
relationships with involved knowledge holders, these efforts can be seen as in line with
integrative knowledge translation (IKT) approaches where elements of research outputs were
identified by and co-developed with community partners (CIHR, 2015).

5.3 Personal Reflections
Before coming to UNBC, I dreamt of doing a master’s focussed on the health benefits of
regenerative agriculture. Coming from an undergraduate program that prides itself on critical
thinking, I assumed that this project focus would undoubtedly translate to research promoting

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social and environmental justice. Upon beginning my graduate coursework in Political Ecology,
First Nations Research Methodologies, and Health Promotion, I ultimately began to question my
initial idea to focus on regenerative agriculture and its potential to promote health. I started to see
the ways in which regenerative farming narratives can perpetuate neoliberal dynamics and I
noticed that the folks engaging with ‘alternative’ agriculture seemed to come from a fairly
homogeneous (privileged) demographic. These reflections led me to question why some groups
are being underrepresented in alternative agriculture movements, such as regenerative
agriculture. Engaging with political ecology and Indigenous scholarship allowed me to realize
that alternative agriculture not only has the capacity to be neoliberal, but also neocolonial, by
often failing to incorporate social justice considerations, like not acknowledging that most
‘alternative farming’ takes place on stolen Indigenous Land in Canada.
Not wanting to perpetuate colonial harms through research, and in an effort to in some
small way combat deeply entrenched power dynamics and colonial histories within the academy,
I decided to re-focus this master’s on the experiences of those pursuing food sovereignty and
Indigenous food sovereignty in northern BC. This decision, however, was uncomfortable and I
was unsure how, as a white settler and newcomer to the area, I could help northern and
Indigenous communities through research.
Largely through graduate coursework in First Nations Studies, as well as through my own
reading and guidance from friends and colleagues, I learned that addressing this discomfort lies
in ongoing, transparent and humble communication. I learned that, in contrast to positivist
research paradigms, authentic relationships can and should be fostered in justice-oriented
research and that research can be a co-learning process wherein all knowledge holders involved

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are collective experts in the research (Koster et al., 2012; Kovach, 2010; Struthers, 2001; Wilson,
2008).
These realizations led me to speak with over 50 knowledge holders involved with food
sovereignty across northern BC as discussed in Chapter 2. While these interactions were mostly
pleasant and validating, some were difficult and sparked some uncomfortable but necessary and
valuable personal growth. During one interaction, I implied that I was hoping to pursue this
research as a settler ally/accomplice. In response, I was clearly informed that it is not up to a
settler to be considered an ally or accomplice and that I should commit to reciprocity and
acknowledgement in order to be successful in this work. I initially felt shocked that my ‘good
intentions’ could have been interpreted as entitled, privileged and colonial, but with the help of
my supervisors and supports, I stopped myself from indulging my self-absorbed perspective. I
began to reflect: “if this is how I feel coming from a position of immense privilege when simply
told that I overstepped and made a mistake, imagine how people felt when colonizers arrived and
decimated their Lands, disrupted their communities, took away their children, delegitimized or
capitalized off of their knowledge, and CONTINUE to perpetuate colonial harms to this day?”
This interaction ultimately led me to read literature, listen to podcasts, and attend workshops on
cultural humility, anti-racism, and ways to respectfully and humbly navigate research with
Indigenous communities as a settler.
An article written by settler scholar Kathy Snow (2018) reflecting on graduate research
she conducted with Indigenous communities really resonated with me and provided insights
around navigating inevitable tensions in the work I was hoping to do. In spite of the complexity
of such work, Snow (2018) encourages settler students to not ‘shy away’ from working with
Indigenous communities in a research capacity. Snow rather expresses the importance of

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adhering to Kirkness and Barnhardt’s Four R’s framework (respectful, relevant, reciprocal, and
responsible) as is discussed in Chapter 3. Snow’s personal research experience inspired her to
propose four additional R’s for settler researchers to adhere to: rights, relationships, returning
and reflection. Reflecting on Snow’s article and the works of others (Koster et al., 2012;
Struthers, 2001) guided me through the (at times) messiness of this research journey and helped
me to continually return to my commitment to fostering respectful, reciprocal, responsible, and
constantly evolving relationships in this project. Returning to lessons learned from these works
was crucial during times when these priorities represented more time commitments for me and
when they did not necessarily align with my project’s timeline. For instance, as is further
discussed in Chapter 3, when one involved knowledge holder revoked verbal consent, Snow’s
article re-affirmed my decision to respect their decision without letting the academic time
constraints I faced interfere with our relationship or their right to ongoing voluntary informed
consent.
While I cannot speak for the knowledge holders involved in this study, I feel that my
intention to adhere to (both) the Four R’s frameworks throughout this project and a commitment
to continual self-reflection in the form of journaling and seeking advice from mentors has
enabled me to foster meaningful and reciprocal relationships with those involved. Despite having
never met many of them in person due to restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, I
consider many of them as friends, some of whom I hope to visit with on their beautiful farms in
the near future, and with whom I feel a unique connection over our shared passion for food. I feel
deeply grateful to everyone involved in this project for their time, wisdom, insights and sharing,
and most of all for their commitment to pursue food sovereignty in the name of justice,
sustainability and collective health and well-being.

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5.4 Project Limitations and Research Lessons
As mentioned in Chapter 4, through reading work such as Castleden et al.’s “I Spent the
First Year Drinking Tea” Exploring Canadian university researchers’ perspectives on
community-based participatory research involving Indigenous peoples, I learned early on in this
master’s degree that there are inherent challenges in pursuing justice-oriented research under the
constraints of the colonial academy. The ‘catch-22’ noted by Castleden and colleagues regarding
the need for funding and ethics, but the simultaneous need to make relationships with
communities is a sentiment that I experienced in this work. Though I made a concerted effort to
speak to a diverse array of knowledge holders pursuing food sovereignty in northern BC before
initiating this research, having pursued a project involving folks with whom I already had a
longstanding relationship would have freed up more time to be able to truly carry out
community-based participatory research wherein folks could have been more heavily involved in
all steps of the research process. It is worth noting that the constrains that I faced to pursuing
community-based participatory research were not only a result of the colonial academy. Factors
such as already limited community availability and capacity as well as additional stress facing
communities as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic also hindered my ability to engage in a
participatory research process. I will explore these factors later in this section.
While conversing with many informants prior to beginning this research gave me new
insights, perspectives and contextual information that helped inform this project’s direction and
approach, unfortunately a large number of these people who expressed initial interest in the
project were unable to participate when the time came. While this decline in engagement can be
partly seen as a result of the pandemic and associated stress and responsibilities, there is also an

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inherent challenge with engaging with folks who work long and tiresome days on the land and
often need to supplement their food sovereignty work with other employment, require
government grant funding that has time consuming application processes, or participate in
multiple farmers markets and selling avenues that is similarly time consuming and tiresome. In
other words, farming is a full-time intensive job and for many of these people this is not their
only role. Managing multiple roles is particularly common among women and thus made it
especially difficult for women food sovereignty leaders to give time to this project (Heath &
Weber, 2020).
As such, upon reconnecting with many of these folks when I was prepared to engage in
conversational interviews, many who had expressed initial interest did not follow up, and many
expressed their regrets due to not having the capacity to further contribute to this project. Even
for those that did show renewed interest, scheduling was often difficult, and many meetings were
postponed several weeks (even months in some cases) and others were unintentionally missed
due to Land and community-based responsibilities. These experiences made me aware that in the
name of pursuing more ‘equitable, diverse and inclusive’ research, researchers can place
unnecessary burden on knowledge holders whose capacity is already stretched in working to
resist oppression. An overall finding from this work is that communities are strapped for
resources, are busy with other projects or various events needing response, and possibly even
burning out due to research fatigue. Staying flexible and understanding of community members
and potential involved knowledge holders (e.g., giving space, not pressuring people to respond to
emails and research demands) was crucial for me navigating these complex dynamics. Further,
future settler researchers wading through the challenges of community-based research could
benefit from co-developing compensation menus with community members in an effort to help

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lesson these aforementioned burdens (e.g., offering a farm hand, research or administrative
assistance and other unconventional compensation options in academia). Devising ways that the
academy and affiliated institutions could incentivize ‘with and for’ research (Koster et al., 2012),
while fully recognizing its time consuming and ‘messy’ nature, could be a real step in the
direction to fostering more just, sustainable and action-oriented research partnerships.
As noted in Chapter 3, we must move forward in justice-oriented work through a “web of
consensual relationships… through lived experience and embodiment.” (Simpson, 2014, p.16).
The findings from this study reiterated this truth, highlighting that the nature of food sovereignty
experiences in northern BC is embodied and lived. As part of grappling with embodied realities,
Indigenous health and political ecology scholarship stresses the importance of fracturing false
dichotomies between humans and nature. For instance, Redvers et al. (2020) express the
importance of fostering communities of people that see themselves as being of nature—being
embodied by nature—as opposed to simply existing in nature that surrounds them. Such a shift in
understanding, Redvers et al. (2020) argue, is crucial in promoting healthy futures on micro and
macro scales. Further, as briefly discussed in chapter 4, scholars such as Mitchell-Foster &
Gislason (2018) encourage researchers and policymakers to grapple with embodied and locallived realities to better inform processes addressing cumulative socio-ecological impacts.
Despite the importance of grappling with communities’ lived realities in health, social and
environmental justice research, a limitation of doing research in an academic setting via remote
interviews is that part of this embodied experience gets lost in translation. As is noted by
Morrison (2020), the English language itself tends to struggle to encompass the highly contextdependent, interdependent, “verb-based” systems of Indigenous food sovereignty that are better

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understood as “lived realities” (p.26). I will discuss ways to potentially mitigate these limitations
in an effort to promote more representative, holistic contributions in the following section.

5.5 Suggestions for Future Research in the Field
Conversational interviews can be seen as a methodology that enables storytelling (Nagar,
2013) and I chose this method as it can facilitate the re-centring of community voices,
marginalized narratives, and subjugated knowledge (Aldred et al., 2020, Gislason et al., 2018).
Throughout this master’s, though, I learned that arts-based and narrative methods such as digital
storytelling can be even more useful than other knowledge sharing techniques in narrating
peoples’ lived realities as they have the capacity to move beyond the limitations of narrative
research methods like interviews, serving as a community-driven initiative that can better
resonate with oral wisdom (Cunsolo Willox et al., 2013). Digital stories have been leveraged in
projects seeking to integrate environment, community, and health in northern BC contexts
(Gislason et al., 2018) as well as in work with youth in a northern BC context (Ward & de
Leeuw, 2018) Given the embodied nature of food sovereignty experiences, future research might
benefit from leveraging more creative arts-based and narrative methods such as digital
storytelling.
As another methodological option, scholars cite the evolving field of geopoetics as
having the possibility to grapple with radical geographies in new and necessarily nuanced ways
(de Leeuw & Magrane, 2019). As discussed in Chapter 2, given that questions of food
sovereignty are increasingly being explored through the lens of radical food geography (Levkoe
et al., 2020; Hammelman, 2020), leveraging geopoetics as a creative and expansive
methodological tool could offer promising future contributions to the field. Further, while I was

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attentive to gender in the context of food sovereignty during my review of background
information, I was not able to carry through gender considerations as much as I had intended in
the findings and discussion sections due to the breadth and timeline of this project. As such,
future research with a particular focus on gendered experiences of food sovereignty and holistic
health in rural, northern and Indigenous geographies would contribute to a gap in current
literature and would inevitably advance the field. Lastly, while this study did, in part, explore
ways to mitigate existing barriers to food sovereignty in this socio-political and geographic
context, this was not its core focus. Given the dire need to promote more sustainable, just and
self-determined food systems, future research in the field should focus on action-oriented, policy
and systems-level approaches to address existing barriers and challenges to pursuing food
sovereignty in northern BC.

5.6 Summary
Engaging in this project has been an incredible experience and I gained extraordinary
insights from talking with people and being informed by lived experiences of food sovereignty in
northern BC. Despite its brevity in length, in a small way the novel insights gained in this
research may contribute to the progression of the growing field of food sovereignty. The insights
gained through this study may be used to help inform future northern BC food sovereignty
projects, funding and education. As outlined in section 5.1, the study’s findings answered the
original research questions: 1) How does practicing food sovereignty affect peoples’ health in
northern British Columbia? And 2) What are the sociopolitical, environmental and cultural
factors that foster (or limit) peoples’ food sovereignty practices? Identifying the ways in which
food sovereignty practices affects people’s health, and, relatedly, which factors help and hinder

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these practices in northern BC can pave the way for future research that has a more concerted
focus on tangible strategies to uplift these practices and, in turn, people’s collective health and
well-being. I feel deeply grateful for the opportunity to come in from the ‘outside’ and try my
best to privilege Indigenous stories about what has historically worked around food sovereignty
and how these practices are being re-ignited by community. My hope is that this research might
inspire future students and scholars in the field to use their academic privilege to learn from and
make space for community food sovereignty experts, many of whom are working every day in an
effort to promote a more just, sustainable, and healthy food system for future generations.

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APPENDIX 1. UNBC Ethics Board Approval Letter

RESEARCH ETHICS BOARD
MEMORANDUM
To:
CC:

Katja Korol-O’Dwyer
Sarah de Leeuw
Margot Parkes

From: Davina Banner-Lukaris, Chair
Research Ethics Board
Date: September 16, 2021
Re:

E2021.0809.036.00
Experiences of Food Sovereignty in Colonial Northern BC

Thank you for submitting the above-noted proposal to the Research Ethics Board (REB). Your
proposal has been approved.
We are pleased to issue approval for the above named study for a period of 12 months from the
date of this letter. Continuation beyond that date will require further review and renewal of REB
approval. Any changes or amendments to the protocol or consent form must be approved by the
REB.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, no in-person interactions with participants are permitted
without an approved Safe Research Plan and the protocol mitigations for COVID-19 being
submitted as an amendment and approved by the REB. Please refer to the Chair Bulletins
found on the REB webpage for further details. If questions remain, please do not hesitate to
email reb@unbc.ca.
Good luck with your research.
Sincerely,

Dr. Davina Banner-Lukaris
Chair, Research Ethics Board

3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, V2N 4Z9, Telephone (250) 960-6735

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APPENDIX 2: TCPS CORE Certificate

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APPENDIX 3: Compensation Menu

149

APPENDIX 4: Timeline of Research

Semester date

Thesis task

Winter 2021 (Jan-April)

-

Finalize proposal

-

Schedule proposal defense

-

Submit Research Ethics Board and
make revisions as needed

-

Check if CIHR graduate scholarship
application was successful

Spring/Summer 2021 (May-August)

-

Write review of written and spoken
voices section

Fall 2021 (Sept-Dec)

-

Conduct interviews

-

Write introduction and methodology,
research design and methods sections

Winter 2022 (Jan-April)

-

Write findings, discussion, and
conclusion sections

-

Supply knowledge holders with
appropriate compensation for their time
and contributions

Spring/ Summer 2022

150

-

Schedule thesis defense

-

Submit and defend thesis