Resistance and Renewal: How Native Food Sovereignty Movements Should Guide Human Rights and Social Work

Abstract

The historical use of food as a means of social control has led to stark health inequities in Native communities throughout the USA, and many federal structures and policies meant to support Native well-being and self-determination serve rather as tools of ongoing colonization and marginalization. Addressing these inequities and supporting Indigenous communities in the fulfillment of their right to adequate, culturally acceptable food calls for our critical consideration of how and when a rights-based approach to social work might be effective and ethically sound. Given Indigenous peoples’ disproportionate vulnerability at the intersection of environmental justice and food justice, Native leadership regarding these issues must be elevated in local, national, and global conversations about climate change and human rights fulfillment.