Indigenous Food Systems: Battling Whiteness through Decolonization

Summary Introduction The aims of this thesis are twofold; firstly, it aims to increase the understanding of the extent to which community gardens enhance social cohesion for those involved; secondly, it aims to gain insight into the importance community gardeners attach to food growing per se, and the extent to which participants perceive community gardens as an alternative to the industrial food system. I define community gardens as a plot of land in an urban area, cultivated either communally or individually by people from the direct neighbourhood or the wider city, or in which urbanites are involved in other ways than gardening, and to which there is a collective element. Over the last years, community gardens have sprung up in several Dutch cities. Although there are various reasons for an increasing interest in community gardens, there are two that I focus on in this thesis in particular. The first is the assumption made that community gardens stimulate social cohesion in inner-city neighbourhoods, to be seen in the light of the 'participatory society'. The second is community gardens' contribution to the availability of locally produced food, in the context of an increased interest in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs). The Dutch government aims to transform the Dutch welfare state into a participatory society in which citizens take more responsibility for their social and physical environment. This way the government not only hopes to limit public spending, but also wishes to increase social bonding and the self-organisational capacity of society. Community gardens fit the rhetoric around the participatory society, as they are examples of organised residents taking responsibility for their living environment. Moreover, the literature suggests that gardens are physical interventions that may decrease isolation by acting as meeting places. However, both the extent to which community gardens enhance social cohesion and under what conditions they may do so are unclear, especially as gardens come in various designs, shapes and sizes. The popularity of community gardens also seems to be related to an overall increasing societal interest in food, and can be discussed in relation to Alternative Food Networks. AFNs are food systems that are different in some way from the mainstream, and are seen as a reaction to consumer concerns about the conventional food system. They are often considered to be dictated by political motivations and injected with a 'deeper morality'. The category 'AFN' is however a heterogeneous category, as is the conventional food system; neither can be easily defined. The degree to which community gardens can be seen as AFNs is therefore unclear. While they do improve the availability of local food and operate outside of the market economy, we do not know how much and how often people eat from their gardens, nor do we know to what extent they are involved in the gardens in order to provide an alternative to the industrial food system. Hence, there is a lack of knowledge about the sense in which community gardens are alternative alternatives. Research questions The overall research question of this thesis is: What is the significance of community gardening in terms of its intention to promote social cohesion as well as its representation as an alternative food system? This broad question is instructed by the following sub-questions: Why do people get involved in community gardens? What are their motivations?How, to what extent, and under which conditions does community gardening promote the development of social relations between participants? How do participants value these social effects? To what extent do the diets of community garden participants originate from the gardens in which they are involved? What is the importance of food in community gardens?What is the importance of growing or getting access to alternative food for participants of community gardens? Methodology An important theoretical lens in this research is the theory of practice. Practices are defined as concrete human activity and include things, bodily doings and sayings. By performing practices people not only draw upon but also feed into structure. Routinisation – of practices, but also of daily life – therefore plays a central role in practice theory. Practice theory allows for an emphasis on practical reality as well as a study of motivations. This focus on how people manage everyday life, and how gardening fits within that, makes it particularly useful for this thesis. I define social cohesion as the way in which people in a society feel and are connected to each other (De Kam and Needham 2003) and operationalised it by focusing on 'social contacts, social networks, and social capital', one of the elements into which social cohesion is often broken up. This element was operationalised as 1) contacts (the width of social cohesion) and 2) mutual help (the depth of social cohesion). This research has a case study design; I studied four Dutch community gardens over a two-year period of time, and later supplemented these with an additional three cases. As practices consist of both doings and sayings, analysis must be concerned with both practical activity and its representation. I used participant observations to study practical activities, and interviews, questionnaires and document study to examine the representation of these activities. Findings Chapters 3 to 7 form the main part of this thesis. They are papers/book chapters that have been submitted to or are published by scientific journals or books. All of them are based on the field work. In chapter 3 we compare two of the case studies and determine to what extent they can be seen as 'alternative'. We argue that although reflexive motivations are present, most participants are unwilling to frame their involvement as political, and mundane motivations play an important role in people's involvement as well. By using the concept of 'food provisioning practices' we show that participants of community gardens are often required to be actively involved in the production of their food. This means that participants are both producers and consumers: the gardens show a 'sliding scale of producership'. This chapter also shows that political statements are not a perfect predictor of actual involvement in community gardening. This finding was one of the main reasons for starting to use the theory of practice, which is the main topic of the next chapter. In chapter 4 we compare one of my case studies with an urban food growing initiative in New York City. By comparing the internal dynamics of these two cases and their relations with other social practices, we investigate whether different urban food growing initiatives can be seen as variations of one single practice. We also study the question of whether the practice can be seen as emerging. In particular, we take the elements of meaning, competences and material (Shove et al. 2012) into account. We found both similarities and differences between the two cases, with the main difference relating to the meanings practitioners attach to the practice. We conclude, therefore, that it is not fully convincing to see these cases as examples of the same social practice. We also argue that urban food growing may be considered an emerging practice, because it combines various practices, both new and established, under one single heading. In chapter 5 we use the theory of practice to explore how urban food growing is interwoven with everyday life. We compare four community gardens - two allotments and two cases which we define as AFNs. We found that participants of the allotments are involved in the practice of gardening, while members of the AFNs are involved in the practice of shopping. The gardening practice requires structural engagement, turning it into a routine. The produce is a result of that routine and is easily integrated into daily meals. As AFNs are associated with the practice of shopping, they remain in competition with more convenient food acquisition venues. Eating from these gardens is therefore less easily integrated in daily life; every visit to the garden requires a conscious decision. Hence, whether members are primarily involved in shopping or in growing has an impact on the degree to which they eat urban-grown food. This shows that motivations are embedded in the context and routine of everyday life, and 'only go so far'. Chapter 6 concerns the organisational differences between the seven case studies in this thesis and the extent to which these influence the enhancement of social cohesion. We study people's motivations for being involved in the gardens and compare these with the three main organisational differences. This comparison reveals that the gardens can be divided into place-based and interest-based gardens. Place-based gardens are those in which people participate for social reasons – aiming to create social bonds in the neighbourhood. Interest-based gardens are those in which people participate because they enjoy growing vegetables. Nevertheless, all of these gardens contribute to the development of social cohesion. Moreover, while participants who are motivated by the social aspects of gardening show a higher level of appreciation for them, these social aspects also bring added value for those participants who are motivated primarily by growing vegetables. In chapter 7 we present a garden that exemplifies that gardens may encompass not only one, but indeed several communities, and that rapprochement and separation take place simultaneously. While this garden is an important meeting place, thereby contributing to social cohesion, it harbours two distinct communities. These communities assign others to categories ('us' and 'them') on the basis of place of residence, thereby strengthening their own social identities. Ownership over the garden is both an outcome and a tool in that struggle. We define the relationship between these two communities as instrumental-rational – referring to roles rather than individuals - which explains why they do not form a larger unity. Nevertheless, the two communities show the potential to develop into a larger imagined garden-community. Conclusions This thesis shows that the different organisational set-ups of community gardens reflect gardeners' different motivations for being involved in these gardens. The gardens studied in this thesis can be defined as either place-based or interest-based; gardens in the first category are focused on the social benefits of gardening, whereas gardens in the second category are focused on gardening and vegetables. Nevertheless, social effects occur in both types of gardens; in all of the gardens studied, participants meet and get to know others and value these contacts. Based on this finding, I conclude that community gardens do indeed enhance social cohesion. Place-based community gardens specifically have the potential to become important meeting places; they offer the opportunity to work communally towards a common goal, and once established, can develop into neighbourhood spaces to be used for various other shared activities. Most interest-based gardens lack opportunities to develop the social contacts that originated at the garden beyond the borders of the garden. These gardens are often maintained by people who do not live close to the garden or to each other, and those who garden are generally less motivated by social motivations per se. Important to note is that community gardens do not necessarily foster a more inclusive society; they often attract people with relatively similar socio-economic backgrounds and may support not one, but several communities. Most participants from place-based gardens eat from their gardens only occasionally; others never do so. This type of community garden can therefore hardly be seen as a reaction to the industrialised food system, let alone an attempt to create an alternative food system. Nevertheless, certain aspects of these gardens are in line with the alternative rhetoric. By contrast, most gardeners at interest-based gardens eat a substantial amount of food from their gardens, and to some of them the choice to consume this locally-grown food relates to a lifestyle in which environmental considerations play a role. However, this reflexivity is not expressed in political terms and participants do not see themselves as part of a food movement. Participants who buy rather than grow produce showed the greatest tendency to explain their involvement in political terms, but many of them have difficulty including the produce in their diets on a regular basis. I therefore conclude that community gardens cannot be seen as conscious, 'alternative' alternatives to the industrial food system. Nonetheless, the role of food in these gardens is essential, as it is what brings participants together – either because they enjoy gardening or because the activities which are organised there centre around food. Theoretical contributions In this thesis I used and aimed to contribute to the theory of practice. Using participant observations to study what people do in reality was particularly useful. It turned research into an embodied activity, enabling me to truly 'live the practice', and therefore to understand it from the inside. Deconstructing the practice of food provisioning into activities such as buying, growing and cooking was helpful in gaining an understanding of how people manage everyday life, and how food acquisitioning fits into their everyday rhythms. It sheds light on how and to what extent people experience the practice of community gardening as a food acquisitioning practice, and to what degree they relate it to other elements of food provisioning such as cooking and eating. The focus on the separate elements of food provisioning practices helped me realise that acquiring food from community gardens represents a different practice to different people; some are engaged in the practice of growing food, others in the practice of shopping for food. This thesis showed that motivations delineate how the practice 'works out in practice'; the way in which a practice such as community gardening is given shape attracts people with certain motivations, who, by reproducing that practice, increase the attractiveness of the practice for others with similar motivations. This implies that while community gardening appears to be one practice, it should in fact be interpreted as several distinct practices, such as the practice of food growing or the practice of social gathering. Motivations therefore influence a garden's benefits and outcomes. This thesis thus highlights that motivations should not be overlooked when studying practices. Apprehending the motivations of community gardeners is also an important contribution to the literature around AFNs, since it helps us to understand the extent to which urban food production is truly alternative. By studying motivations, this thesis reveals that AFNs do not necessarily represent a deeper morality, or that not all food growing initiatives in the city can be defined as alternative. However, participants of community gardens are often both producers and consumers (there is a 'sliding scale of producership'); the gardens are thus largely independent from the conventional food system. Moreover, for participants who buy produce, the meaning of the gardens often goes beyond an economic logic (there is a 'sliding scale of marketness'). Hence, while the gardens studied in this thesis are no alternative alternatives, most of them can be qualified as 'actually existing alternatives' (after Jehlicka and Smith 2011). This thesis showed that even those gardens in which the commodification of food is being challenged do not necessarily represent a deeper morality, which is contrary to what is argued by Watts et al. (2005). This implies that understanding whether or not initiatives resist incorporation into the food system is insufficient to be able to determine whether or not they can be defined as alternative food networks. However, determining whether or not deeper moral reflection is present is not a satisfactory way of defining food networks as alternative either, as this neglects the fact that motivations do not always overlap with practical reality. This suggests that establishing whether a food network can be regarded as alternative requires studying both motivations and practical reality. The thesis also raises the question to what extent the label AFN is still useful. Since it is unclear what 'alternative' means exactly, it is also unclear whether a given initiative can be considered alternative. Moreover, the world of food seems too complex to be represented by a dichotomy between alternative and conventional food systems; the gardens presented in this thesis are diverse and carry characteristics of both systems. I therefore suggest considering replacing the term AFN with that of civic food networks, as Renting et al. (2012) advocate.

Alternative food systems and networks, which have emerged around the world, are often fragmentary, reduced in size and frequently unfold in parallel, hardly linked to each other. Agroecology faces the challenge of scaling up these initiatives to gain size and a significant impact on food production and consumption. Within the agroecological movement, however, diverse conceptions exist of what a sustainable food system should be. It is thus necessary to reach an extensive consensus, from the perspective of agroecology, on the principles guiding the construction of such a system. This paper discusses the principles that would best steer the building of Agroecology-based Local Agri-food Systems (ALAS). To this end, a critical review of the scientific literature on alternative food networks and systems was performed. In so doing, we highlighted the aspects that one could consider as purely agroecological in nature and sought to bring them together to form a coherent proposal. Consequently, the present paper systematizes the main contributions of literature on alternative food networks and systems, taking into account the characteristics of sustainability from an agroecology viewpoint, and identifies the issues requiring further development. Several principles are proposed to define local food systems, based on the four dimensions of sustainability: environmental health, economic viability, social equity and the right to decide what, how and for whom food is produced.

<p>In <em>Sociobiology of Indigenous Foods and Food Systems</em>, Matthew Ogwu presents an integrative and richly interdisciplinary examination of Indigenous foodways as co-evolved sociobiological systems. The volume traces the profound ecological, cultural, and nutritional wisdom embedded in traditional food practices that have sustained human communities across diverse environments for millennia. Organized into four thematic sections, the book covers theoretical foundations of sociobiology and Indigenous knowledge, detailed case studies on iconic crops and foraging systems across Africa, the Americas, Oceania, and Asia, and functional insights into nutrition, medicine, and food symbolism. It further addresses contemporary issues of diaspora adaptation, intellectual property, bioprospecting, and policy frameworks affecting Indigenous food sovereignty. Drawing on anthropology, ecology, nutrition science, law, and Indigenous scholarship, Ogwu’s work highlights both the resilience and vulnerability of Indigenous food systems in the face of globalization, climate change, and historical injustice. The book closes with a call for revitalizing Indigenous food systems as powerful pathways toward ecological sustainability, cultural renewal, and food justice. This timely and authoritative text offers vital guidance for academics, policymakers, activists, and anyone engaged in the intersections of food, environment, and cultural survival.</p>

Introduction This inaugural column by the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Editorial Circle (IFSEC) in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD) introduces a dedicated section of articles on Indigenous food sovereignty in partnership with First Nations Development Institute (First Nations). The column and the IFSEC reflect both our mission to work toward a more equitable and just food sys¬tem, and JAFSCD’s long-standing commitment to Indigenous food sovereignty, illustrated by the 2019 special issue on “Indigenous Food Sovereignty of North America.” An Indigenous-led editorial circle as part of JAFSCD, IFSEC uplifts Indigenous values and community food system aspirations in academic publishing. As an introduction to the IFSEC, this column will briefly outline the centrality of food, place, and learning in Indigenous lifeways, the main differences between Indigenous and Western approaches to the food system, and some thoughts on the role of Indigenous ways of knowing and being for the collective flourishing of humanity and all our relations, human and otherwise. The cycle of themes, along with other emergent topics related to Indigenous food systems, will thread throughout future columns. The current geographic focus includes the continental United States, Hawai’i, and Canada. The geographic scope is determined by the territorial affiliations of IFSEC members and may broaden to include other nations and regions over time.

Despite the various studies on food governance structured around alternative food systems (AFS), analysis of the essential characteristics of it which facilitate the sustainability of the food system (FS) is still incipient. This study aims to clarify the debate on the role of governance in sustainability of the FS by way of the following two objectives: (i) to characterise the analytical approach of the literature in the processes of structuring of food governance related to AFS, and (ii) to reflect qualitatively on the essential factors to be considered which ensure sustainable processes and trajectories of the AFS. The research methodology is based on a systematic review of the literature in order to define the approaches identified in the relevant studies in their analysis of the food governance process. From the results, a conceptual framework is proposed that determines the strategies related to food governance which can help meet the challenges of the AFS. A multi-actor and multilevel governance is identified that takes into account both structural and variable aspects linked to the interdependent relationships that are involved in the construction processes of the alternative food networks (AFN). We conclude our study by identifying certain gaps in the knowledge as well as new lines of study that we deem necessary in order to consolidate the AFS from a vision of sustainability.

Indigenous Peoples, especially women and children, are affected disproportionately by malnutrition and diet-related health problems. Addressing this requires an investigation of the structural conditions that underlie unequal access to resources and loss of traditional lifestyles and necessitates inclusive approaches that shed light onto these issues and provide strategies to leverage change. Indigenous Peoples' food systems are inextricably connected to land, which in turn is interwoven with issues of self-determination, livelihoods, health, cultural and spiritual heritage, and gender. Ongoing loss of land and the dominant agri-food model further threaten Indigenous Peoples' food systems. Continuing gender-based discrimination undermines the self-determination and rights of women and negatively impacts their health, nutritional status, and overall well-being, as well as the well-being of households and communities. We suggest that feminist political ecology and modern matriarchal studies provide holistic interlinking frameworks for investigating underlying issues of power and inequality. We further argue that a focus on the principles of respect, responsibility, and relationships, and an openness to different worldviews, can facilitate a bridging of Indigenous and Western approaches in research and community action conducted in partnership with Indigenous Peoples. This can contribute to creating new ways of knowing regarding Indigenous Peoples' food systems, equally valuing both knowledge systems. Indigenous Peoples' rights, right to food, and food sovereignty are frames that, despite some tensions, have the common goal of self-determination. Through their ability to inform, empower, and mobilize, they provide tools for social movements and communities to challenge existing structural inequalities and leverage social change.

Taste in the Anthropocene: The Emergence of “Thing-power” in Food Gardens

Indigenous food (IF) systems comprise culturally important foods derived from natural resources with shorter farm to plate chains, as compared to modern counterparts. These food systems are at epicenter of sustainable food systems with potential to alleviate malnutrition and protect ecosystems. The Ho indigenous community of Jharkhand have access to diverse IFs, yet experience malnutrition. A sequential mixed-method study was conducted to explore local food systems with assessment of diet quality and nutritional status of Ho women. Focus group discussions (n = 10) and free-listing (n = 7) were conducted to capture community’s perspectives on IF systems, associated sustainable attributes and perceived challenges towards IF utilization. Scientific names and nutritive values of IFs were documented through secondary review; in case of no information in literature, IFs were identified through ethnobotanist with nutritional analysis in laboratory. 24 h recalls (n = 284 in winter and n = 154 in monsoon) and anthropometric assessments (n = 273) were conducted to estimate women’s dietary diversity and nutritional status. Findings revealed rich traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) producing a diverse list of IFs (n = 243) mainly accessed from natural food environment (wild and cultivated). Among listed foods, 171 IFs were taxonomically classified and among these, nutritive values were documented for 121 IFs. Potentially sustainable traits of Ho’s IF systems included high nutrient density of IFs, community’s preference towards their consumption because of their flavorsome attributes, climate resilient properties and cultural heritage. However, impacts of climate variability, changing farming practices and market-integrated life ways challenged the sustained production, access and consumption of IFs. This was evident in poor diversity in diets (diet diversity scores of 2.9 in winter and monsoon) and chronic energy deficiency (36%) in women. The unique TEK systems of indigenous communities need to be integrated into mainstream policies and programs for safeguarding and promoting their potentially sustainable food systems to support food and nutritional security.

Problem Indigenous food systems can affect multiple aspects of Indigenous people’s health and contribute to more efficient, sustainable, resilient, and equitable food systems. However, although tens of Indigenous groups live in China, very few projects have targeted their traditional or Indigenous food systems and ingredients. Description of the problem The main purposes include documenting traditional and Indigenous foods and medicine, building multiple social media for public impact, encouraging Indigenous youth participation, and advocating a more sustainable food system in China Results With the collaboration of Good Food Fund China, the project recruited 257 volunteers from 27 ethnic groups. The project collected 418 traditional food ingredients, produced 18 TikTok short videos to introduce Indigenous ingredients with the maximum number of views in a single post of more than 100,000, organized 16 Indigenous food culture knowledge webinars, translated 14 international case studies in Indigenous food systems with the permission of authors, and published 16 articles about Indigenous food ingredients and culture in the writing camp. The online lives also received more than a million total views. The results were presented at COP26 and COP28. More results will continue to be presented to the public through articles, books, academic papers, documentaries, short videos, online webinars, and other forms. Lessons The project demonstrates the potential to use online platforms to advocate and document sustainable food systems and biodiversity through youth participation. More similar projects can be designed in different parts of the world to support sustainable food systems transformation and ignite down-to-earth changes. However, funding and publication channels are still difficulties in the project. Key messages • The first national level youth participation project to document Indigenous food biodiversity in China. • Take advantage of social media and the internet for public impact.

The concept of the moral economy directs attention to the moral and ethical frameworks through which everyday decisions are framed and enacted. This chapter shows that by exposing the very real differences in the priorities and actions of EarthShare members, people can escape imaginings of local food systems as perfect or entirely free from ambiguity or conflict but still see them as sites of political potential. The chapter begins by introducing the concept of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and locating CSA within a broader literature on local food, moral economies and ethics of care. CSAs have been heralded as offering opportunities to strengthen place-based community relationships between food growers and eaters. Community Supported Agriculture has been identified specifically as a form of food production/consumption that can be characterised as caring practice. EarthShare is a not-for-profit co-operative organisation which was founded in 1994 in Forres near Inverness, Scotland. It is the longest running CSA in Britain.

Trust is an important concept in our food systems. Global food systems are witnessing challenges regarding trust. Alternatives to global food systems, generally referred to as alternative food systems, emphasise trust through local and short food initiatives, commonly referred to as alternative food networks. Alternative food networks can benefit from the trust characteristics inherent in digital technology advances such as blockchain. A key characteristic of blockchain is trust. Knowing how blockchain trust characteristics and trust mechanisms can be used to facilitate trust in the supply chains of alternative food networks will be helpful. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature and an understanding of how trust is captured in architectures of blockchain-enabled food supply chains and highlights possible extensions towards facilitating trust in the supply chain of alternative food networks. A distinction is made between the trust characteristics inherent in blockchain and those that apply to alternative food network supply chains. A framework to integrate trust enabled by blockchain into supply chains of alternative food networks is proposed. Areas of future work are recommended, including a need to validate the proposed framework.KeywordsShort food supply chainsLocal foodTrustFood supply chains Industry 4.0

Understanding the dynamics of food and sustainability are pressing academic and public policy concerns. The food system in developed countries, especially that of the UK, often seems to be bedevilled by periodic alarms, for example, about the safety of food or its nutritional value. Anxieties about food safety and quality are allied to broader concerns about the relationships between producers and retailers, between retailers and manufacturers, and between economic actors in the food chain and policy makers and regulators. While public policy concerns relating to food are long-standing, contemporary debates on food and sustainability appear to have their own distinctive features. First, they involve a wider range of actors: all players in the supply chain have a legitimate voice in raising issues about how sustainability should be thought about and acted upon, and so too do a variety of other actors, ranging from bodies concerned with trade, alternative food networks, health, the environment and so on. In short, the public policy arena for dealing with food issues has become more crowded. Second, and partly as a consequence of the plethora of voices clamouring to be heard on food and sustainability, there is no fixed or agreed agenda. Many issues appear to wax and wane with regularity as their promoters bring them to the fore only to see them rapidly replaced by another issue, while others appear to have greater longevity, such those linked to climate change. Issues, however, do not simply disappear; rather they help to inform the way in which subsequent issues emerge. Policies are layered one upon another (Feindt and Flynn, 2009); issues interact, coalesce and compete in highly dynamic ways. Growing awareness of global threats to the food system has contributed to these debates, adding a further layer as concerns of food security and those of ecological sustainability converge (Godfray et al., 2010; SDC, 2009). This has prompted calls for new agri-food systems that recognise the multi-functionality of food; its social and environmental contributions in addition to its economic ones (IAASTD, 2009; House of Commons, 2009; Foresight, 2011). Advocates argue that new food systems need to be shaped to withstand greater volatilityand uncertainty (Ingram et al., 2010; Foresight, 2011) and need to operate within ecological limits, remain competitive while delivering fairer returns and greater social benefit (Pretty, 2008; Ambler-Edwards et al., 2009; The Royal Society, 2009; Garnett and Godfray, 2012). So, in recent years there have been, and continue to be, debates on food miles, food and health, food and climate change, the environmental impacts of food products, food and trade, alternative food systems, and food security. In this chapter we ask, to what extent is the current dominant food system capable of internal transformation to make it more sustainable? What is the potential for, perhaps, the key alternative food system, organic production, to engender change in the broader food system? The chapter is organised around five themes: the first discusses food supply chains in a global context; second, what is meant by food systems; third, the nature of alternative food systems; fourth, the potential transformative capacity of organic food; fifth, the environmental impacts of the food system, and concludes by pointing to some of the pressing academic and policy concerns.

Indigenous food systems can offer decolonial solutions to the interconnected health, environmental and social justice crises of the 21st Century. Through examining case studies of the Mayan Foodways in Mesoamerica and the Apache Food Systems in the United States, this research highlights how these food systems can heal the socio-ecological wounds of colonisation and resultant coloniality. Grounded in post- and de-colonial thought, this research reveals how specific practices of Indigenous education, vocational training, and cosmological healing can resist colonial legacies of extraction, dispossession, and erasure. Hence, this analysis positions these practices as critical sites of decolonisation and further examines how Indigenous food sovereignty programs challenge neoliberal food systems and foster ecological resilience amid climate change. Additionally, it exposes the disproportionate harm colonial food structures have inflicted on Indigenous women and youth. By centering connectivity and self-representation in food governance, this research underscores the importance of non-anthropocentric worldviews and Indigenous cosmovisions in building sustainable futures. As the 21st Century grapples with its most unprecedented crises, the need for Indigenous representation in policymaking and research is more urgent than ever.

Arctic Indigenous food systems face significant pressure, necessitating transformative changes to ensure food security. Given that Arctic Indigenous communities’ food security is disproportionally being affected by global change, it is important that they develop action plans focused on local agency to meet the challenges they face and leverage food system futures that align with local values. We employ a co-produced participatory scenario planning (PSP) approach that combines PSP with positive scenarios from seeds, leverage points (LP), and intergenerational dialogue to challenge traditional future prospects that tend to be pessimistic and support food security for the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island (ACSPI). Through focus groups, a PSP workshop, and a pathways workshop, this study (i) mobilizes intergenerational community values, develops (ii) four positive future scenarios grounded in these values, and (iii) five pathways to achieve a shared vision of the future food system, and (iv) identifies effective LP for real-world change. The community's shared vision represents a diverse, sovereign local food system rooted in Unangax̂ values. Pathways toward this vision include interventions for local capacity building, economic diversification, local agency, subsistence lifestyles, and community cohesion and health. The paper highlights the transformative potential of co-produced PSP in supporting Arctic Indigenous communities in envisioning and achieving sustainable futures. • Co-produced community vision and pathways for Indigenous local food system identified. • Indigenous food sovereignty and cultural revitalization central to food system vision. • Strategic pathways foster capacity, diversity, agency, subsistence, cohesion. • Community interventions link shallow and deep system levels for transformative change. • Recognizing cross-level interactions of interventions is key to leveraging change.

This article examines the diversity of food networks that fit within the alternative food system of the United States. While farmers' markets, community supported agriculture schemes, and corporate organic food markets all fit within the alternative food system, they differ greatly in the conventions and beliefs that they represent. The alternative food system has divided into two movements: corporate, weak alternative food networks; and local, strong alternative food networks. The weak corporate version focuses on protecting the environment; however, it neglects issues concerning labor standards, animal welfare, rural communities, small-scale farmers, and human health. Local, strong alternative food networks not only assure environmental protection, but they also address the issues that weak alternatives neglect. Using three case studies from the Washington, D.C. metro area, the author explains that strong alternative food networks are better suited to create social and political change because they challenge the foundations of the conventional food system: standardized and generic products, price-based competition, consolidated power, and global scale. To affect true social and political change in the United States, the author recommends supporting strong alternative food networks by creating the requisite cultural and political space for them to succeed.