Land-based resistance: Enacting Indigenous self-determination and kai sovereignty

Abstract

This article outlines the role of land relations in the advancement of food sovereignty in the settler colonial context of Aotearoa New Zealand by exploring how land-based anti-colonial resistance movements, including the recent #ProtectIhumātao campaign, can inform food system transformation. First, this article draws on theories of Indigenous food sovereignty, land sovereignty, and critical property theory to argue that in settler colonial contexts, food sovereignty movements must take a critical approach to questions of the state and sovereignty, property relations, and Indigenous struggles for territorial authority and self-determination. Drawing on land-based resistance movements which have included food production as a method of reclamation, this article further proposes a need to understand food sovereignty in the Aotearoa context as firmly grounded in Māori land sovereignty and territorial authority. Finally, this article explores how the struggle to protect Ihumātao ruptured the seemingly settled nature of property relations and state sovereignty, opening space for the articulation of new modes of land governance and new constitutional arrangements more conducive to Māori aspirations for land management and stewardship—including food sovereignty.