Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WildRice (Wild Rice Culture and Indigenous Food Sovereignty in North America)
Berichtszeitraum: 2020-02-10 bis 2023-02-09
Indigenous peoples around the world are building movements for cultural resurgence and healing, defending traditional ways of being and knowing, to protect the environment, and re-establish autonomous food systems. After several hundred years of genocide and structural racism, understanding the deep and long-lasting effects of colonisation on Indigenous people is an important step that non-Indigenous people can do to support these vital efforts.
The overall objective of this research was to analyse, from a feminist political ecology perspective, the historical and current patterns of control and access of the Ojibwe people to wild rice. Ojibwe people are Indigenous to what is northern central USA and southern Canada. ‘Wild rice’ is the name that English colonists gave to the wild grass (Zizania palustris) growing in the lakes and rivers of central North America in the 1700s. They gave it this name because they saw it growing in water and producing a grain, but it is not botanically a rice (Oryza sativa) at all. Manoomin, the Ojibwe name for the grain, is a spiritually, culturally and historically important food for the Ojibwe people.
In the 1950s, manoomin was sold by businessmen to stores across the United States and Europe bringing Indigenous and non-Indigenous people a significant profit. In the 1960s, the wild grain was domesticated, and farmers began to produce it in flooded paddies in Minnesota and California. The cultivated wild rice is what is found today in rice blends around the world, as well as in health food stores marketed as a gluten-free, ancient grain. The commodification of the hand-harvested wild rice, and later the domestication of this grain were acts of appropriation of an Indigenous food that have had far-reaching impacts on Ojibwe society.
Main conclusions of the research are threefold. First, appropriation of wild rice was possible because of a century of slow violence including dispossession, erasure policies, structural racism and marginalization, including the displacement of women from places of power in society. Second, factors contributing to appropriation included processing technology, the invention of the supermarket, post-WWII housewife propaganda glorifying housework with a focus on cooking, Uncle Ben’s wild rice mix that made wild rice famous, the Indian mystique that made wild rice attractive, efforts of self-indigenization to gain control over natural resources and anti-Indigenous peoples narrative that justified the appropriation. Gastrocolonialism is a useful term to explore this phenomenon. Third, a new approach to feminist political ecology is necessary to sufficiently take into consideration the intersectional dynamics of access to resources, considered gifts or relatives by Indigenous peoples.
The overall objective of this research was to analyse, from a feminist political ecology perspective, the historical and current patterns of control and access of the Ojibwe people to wild rice. Ojibwe people are Indigenous to what is northern central USA and southern Canada. ‘Wild rice’ is the name that English colonists gave to the wild grass (Zizania palustris) growing in the lakes and rivers of central North America in the 1700s. They gave it this name because they saw it growing in water and producing a grain, but it is not botanically a rice (Oryza sativa) at all. Manoomin, the Ojibwe name for the grain, is a spiritually, culturally and historically important food for the Ojibwe people.
In the 1950s, manoomin was sold by businessmen to stores across the United States and Europe bringing Indigenous and non-Indigenous people a significant profit. In the 1960s, the wild grain was domesticated, and farmers began to produce it in flooded paddies in Minnesota and California. The cultivated wild rice is what is found today in rice blends around the world, as well as in health food stores marketed as a gluten-free, ancient grain. The commodification of the hand-harvested wild rice, and later the domestication of this grain were acts of appropriation of an Indigenous food that have had far-reaching impacts on Ojibwe society.
Main conclusions of the research are threefold. First, appropriation of wild rice was possible because of a century of slow violence including dispossession, erasure policies, structural racism and marginalization, including the displacement of women from places of power in society. Second, factors contributing to appropriation included processing technology, the invention of the supermarket, post-WWII housewife propaganda glorifying housework with a focus on cooking, Uncle Ben’s wild rice mix that made wild rice famous, the Indian mystique that made wild rice attractive, efforts of self-indigenization to gain control over natural resources and anti-Indigenous peoples narrative that justified the appropriation. Gastrocolonialism is a useful term to explore this phenomenon. Third, a new approach to feminist political ecology is necessary to sufficiently take into consideration the intersectional dynamics of access to resources, considered gifts or relatives by Indigenous peoples.
The work performed included desk research, an analysis of historical archives, fieldwork in Minnesota, data analysis and dissemination as well as training and knowledge exchange activities. Desk research including historical archive analysis of material collected in the Minnesota Historical Society. The researcher also carried out a literature review and attained deeper knowledge in feminist and decolonial theories. Once Covid permitted international travel, she carried out 6 months of fieldwork in Minnesota during which time she carried out interviews, participant observation, and collaborative writing projects aimed at collective development of an analytical framework. Fieldwork was followed by period of analysis of data and preparation of academic articles.
This action incorporated an important component of training and knowledge exchange. Beyond the research process itself, the researcher engaged in training on and gained experience in research proposal development, and the production of effective multi-media dissemination materials including podcasts, animations, videos, digital stories, policy briefs and website development, all used for dissemination of project results. To date, this research has resulted in the publication of one peer review journal article and another is currently under a second round of revisions with the Journal of Peasant Studies. Two further scientific articles and a book project are in preparation. The researcher attended eight scientific conferences, presented results of the research in two of them, and organized two conference panels and a third scheduled for 2024. She presented her work in five international public events, prepared an Indigenous foods meal and presented in a seminar at the University of Coventry.
This action incorporated an important component of training and knowledge exchange. Beyond the research process itself, the researcher engaged in training on and gained experience in research proposal development, and the production of effective multi-media dissemination materials including podcasts, animations, videos, digital stories, policy briefs and website development, all used for dissemination of project results. To date, this research has resulted in the publication of one peer review journal article and another is currently under a second round of revisions with the Journal of Peasant Studies. Two further scientific articles and a book project are in preparation. The researcher attended eight scientific conferences, presented results of the research in two of them, and organized two conference panels and a third scheduled for 2024. She presented her work in five international public events, prepared an Indigenous foods meal and presented in a seminar at the University of Coventry.
Recognizing the shortcomings of feminist political ecology for understanding intersectional dynamics, this research brought together indigenous and feminist theoretical frames, with the political ecology and political economy of colonization and decolonization. Conceptually, this work has developed a framework that can be applied in other contexts, namely the further development of the nascent concept of gastrocolonialism.
Empirically, in researching a history that is not recorded anywhere else, this project has contributed to the state of Minnesota’s history of settler communities’ and their impact on native peoples, calling to attention the need to return to the Indigenous ways of managing natural resources before traditional knowledge of the wild rice is lost, and with it the rice itself.
Moreover, as a Career Restart grant, this project has achieved its main goal: to facilitate the researcher’s career development within the knowledge producing sector, consolidate her expertise and carry her to professional maturity. This is evidenced by the researcher’s appointment as Assistant Professor at the University of Coventry’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience.
Empirically, in researching a history that is not recorded anywhere else, this project has contributed to the state of Minnesota’s history of settler communities’ and their impact on native peoples, calling to attention the need to return to the Indigenous ways of managing natural resources before traditional knowledge of the wild rice is lost, and with it the rice itself.
Moreover, as a Career Restart grant, this project has achieved its main goal: to facilitate the researcher’s career development within the knowledge producing sector, consolidate her expertise and carry her to professional maturity. This is evidenced by the researcher’s appointment as Assistant Professor at the University of Coventry’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience.