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UnsettlingFoodSecurity_Bagelman.pdf

Unsettling Food Security: The Role of Young People in Indigenous Food System Revitalisation Caroline Bagelman Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK

Official assessments of Canadian food security, which greatly inform policy and perception, paint an insufficient picture of the ways many Indigenous peoples, and in particular Indigenous children who are most impacted by food insecurity, actually experience and understand the problem. This article begins with a discussion of how these metrics neglect the vital connection between access to Indigenous food systems and Indigenous food security. To address the serious food insecurity experienced by Indigenous peoples, this connection must be acknowledged, and revitalisation of these food systems, which are dam- aged by settler-colonial practices, must become a focus of the discourse and action. Indigenous elders believe children will be pivotal in revitalisation. In this spirit, this article traces experiential learning projects on revitalisation, in which young people unsettle the settler discourse of food security and take action in small but important ways. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and National Children’s Bureau

Keywords: Indigenous food systems, Indigenous food security, food system revitalization, place-based learning, experiential education, settler-colonialism, decolonization.

Introduction

Food insecurity in Indigenous communities is now a serious problem. One in six children in Canada experience some degree of food insecurity, and according to the official authority on food security statistics in Canada, the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), a dispro- portionate number are Indigenous children (CCHS, 2012). The 2012 nation-wide survey shows that Indigenous households report more than double the rate of food insecurity than is experienced by white Canadians (CCHS, 2012).

These numbers are extremely troubling, and as this paper discusses, even they do not adequately capture the nature and extent of food insecurity in Canada. This paper contends that the very way these statistics are gathered reflect settler-colonial understandings of food security (which entirely neglect the connection between Indigenous food systems and food security). The first half of this paper sets the colonial context in Canada with Indige- nous peoples, which has generated grave food security issues among others, and then turns a focus to the CCHS and its failure to capture the nature of food insecurity for Indigenous communities.

In the second half of this paper I discuss two concrete ways in which young people have creatively worked towards revitalising their food systems and highlight the lived realities of food insecurity, thus addressing some key oversights of CCHS. These case studies involve children engaging directly with their food systems in British Columbia, and making records of the importance of these systems for their food security. Both pro- jects underscore the importance of children’s links to and knowledge of food systems for food security.

CHILDREN & SOCIETY VOLUME 32, (2018) pp. 219–232 DOI:10.1111/chso.12268

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6164-7671

Context of colonialism: the roots of Indigenous food insecurity in Canada

A growing body of literature traces the extent to which Indigenous food systems have been negatively impacted by colonial policies (Power, 2008; Turner, 2014; Willows, 2005). Indige- nous food systems are grounded in traditional territories in which Indigenous peoples have been careful stewards from time immemorial. Beyond an ecological system, these food sys- tems are relational — they embody the connection between nature and the knowledge and practices of the people, for example: ‘clam beds’ (which are strategically placed trenches dug repeatedly into the sand for hundreds of years to catch clams as the tide moved off the shore) demonstrate how communities shape and are shaped by their food systems. In an Indigenous food system, the culture, spirituality and world view of the peoples is entwined into the environment (Turner, 2008).1

Canada’s colonial violence has been especially evident in education. The official policy to ‘kill the Indian in the child’ of Canada’s residential school system positioned Indigenous chil- dren as the key target in colonising Indigenous peoples (Truth and Reconciliation Commis- sion of Canada, 2015). This system made an intergenerational impact on Indigenous peoples, including the near loss of languages and many ways of life. Beginning in 1840s and contin- uing to 1996, the residential school system involved forcibly taking Indigenous children from their homes and families to live at the institutions in which they were unable to speak their mother tongue or continue their cultural and spiritual practices. Among the ways of life that were actively stripped from children was their access to their food systems and knowl- edge that would have been shared with them by their elders. In light of these events, many survivors of the residential schools are only acquiring traditional food knowledge in their adulthood, out of fear their communities’ food knowledge and systems may otherwise die. In addition to residential schools, Canadian Potlatch bans (1885–1951) denied access to food, and food practices. The bans criminalised the celebrations, feasting and sharing of food gifts making up a potlatch, which are key to the economy, culture and society at large.

Compounding these assimilative policies, the dispossession and industrialisation of tradi- tional lands has seriously harmed food systems resulting in access to food systems becoming extremely hindered or impossible. Notably, Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald put policies in place to extirpate the buffalo population with the express purpose to remove the staple of many Indigenous peoples diets and way of life, and thereby ‘clear the plains’ of Indigenous peoples for settlers (Daschuk, 2013). This colonial destruction of Indigenous food systems continues in new ways today. The tar sands in Northern Alberta is a prime example: the Athabasca River, a vital artery supporting the food system in this region, is now so pol- luted that the water is undrinkable and the fish inedible — the surrounding Boreal forest previously teaming with elk and other game, and filled with edible plants now has ‘too many oil sands mines, roads and gates to hunt [or gather] freely’ (Globe and Mail, 2013).

Food security in Canada: the official account

The CCHS is the primary metric used for assessing food security in Canada. Using an 18- question survey called the Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM), it asks partici- pants to report on the ‘food security situation in [a] household’ over the previous 12 months. The HFSSM ‘focuses on self-reports of uncertain, insufficient or inadequate food access, availability and utilisation due to limited financial resources, and the compromised eating patterns and food consumption that may result’ (Health Canada, 2004).

The 2008 study which analysed specific information pertaining to Indigenous respondents found that an alarming 33 per cent of off-Indigenous reservation2 Indigenous households

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were food insecure, compared to the 8.8 per cent of non-Indigenous households who reported to be food insecure. CCHS reports:

Food insecurity was more prevalent if the household included at least one child under the age of 6 years (10.8%) compared with no children under the age of 6 (9.0%). And, among off-Indigenous reservation Indigenous households, approximately one in five (20.9%) households was food insecure, including 8.4 per cent with severe food insecurity. These rates are approximately three times higher than among non-Indigenous households [. . .] (CCHS, 2008).

These are extremely concerning statistics; however, the information it leaves out is both irresponsible and illuminates a set of colonial assumptions about the causes and experience of Indigenous food insecurity, which I contend obscures the problem and thwarts an effec- tive response. The following discussion will narrow in on two significant oversights of such studies in relation to data on Indigenous peoples and food security in Canada, which will set the stage for the two children and youth projects in British Columbia, presented in the later half of this paper, that help to provide a more fulsome account of the issues from those most affected.

CCHS, a colonial framework: overlooking Indigenous populations and Indigenous food systems

It is necessary to turn a critical eye to the official depiction of food security in Canada if one wants to understand and begin to address the disparities between Indigenous and non- Indigenous communities. Therefore, it must be asked: in what ways are these facts incom- plete, who do these studies miss in constructing these facts on food security and, what understanding of food security do they privilege?

To the question of who these studies miss, the answer is highly concerning. The CCHS and Statistics Canada indicate by way of a minor footnote that they do not include participants living on Indigenous reservations:

Excluded from the survey’s coverage are: persons living on reserves and other Indigenous settle- ments; full-time members of the Canadian Forces and the institutionalised population. Altogether, these exclusions represent less than 3% of the target population (Statistics Canada, 2007).

Although the studies go to great lengths to explain their research process (citing detailed methods used for data collection and statistical analysis), no rationale for the exclusion of Indigenous peoples living on Indigenous reservations was given in this official literature. The exclusion of homeless peoples is justified by the Canadian Community Health Survey on the grounds that they do not have a fixed address in which surveys can be conducted (CCHS, 2017). The CCHS minimises the significance of excluding people on-reserve by stating that the groups left out of the study collectively represent less than 3 per cent of the national population (CCHS, 2017). This number seems very low when measured against the entirety of the Canadian population, until one considers that of the 637 660 Indigenous people who reported being ‘Registered Indians’ in Canada, nearly one-half (49.3%) lived on an ‘Indian reserve or Indian settlement’ (National Household Survey, 2011). Otherwise put, the CCHS, which claims to give a view of food security in Canada has excluded approximately half of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, which experience the greatest degree of poverty (and thus, if included in the CCHS, would report the greatest food insecurity based its income-based ques- tions). The overall food insecurity numbers would rise if these populations were included in this widely used government survey.

Mainstream government research into food security in Canada assesses ‘food security’ according to the 1996 World Food Summit’s prevailing definition: that ‘all people, at all

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times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’ (Pinstrup-Andersen, 2009). When CCHS reports, ‘Indigenous households remain at a much higher risk of household food insecurity’, what the studies assess is the frequency and nutritional quality of food consumed (CCHS, 2012). They focus on financial barriers to households accessing food. Again, I hold that this picture would be more representative if the definition of food security incorporated Indigenous perspectives on food security, health and well-being, not merely a consideration of finances. Many Indigenous and non-Indigenous food security scholars support this view. In their work ‘We Are Not Being Heard: Indigenous perspectives on traditional foods access and food security’ Bethany Elliot and others suggest that:

Although this definition is intended to be inclusive of the dietary needs and food preferences of ‘all people’, concepts beyond the conventional food system, for example, traditional or country foods, are often overlooked in food security discussions. Two food systems — conventional and traditional — play on food security of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

(Elliott and others, 2012)

While the World Food Summit’s definition uses ‘food preferences’ to indicate that the type or quality of the food factors into ones experience of food security, it misses the mark in acknowledging culturally appropriate food (FAO, 1996). Many Indigenous communities do not consider traditional food from their lands a preference, but rather a necessity (Elliott and others, 2012). Charlotte Reading suggests that an ‘Indigenous concept of health is holistic and includes physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health — leading to overall well- being. Traditional foods, due to their connectivity with cultural practices and traditional knowledge, impact not only physical health, but also emotional, mental, and spiritual health’ (Reading, 2009). A failure of food security assessments to recognise the profundity of what is being consumed, and where or how that food was produced can only paint a settler view of Indigenous health and well-being.

Reframing food security discourse: young voices on Indigenous food systems and revitalisation

The connection between food security and Indigenous food systems has been ruptured by colonial policies like residential schools, which intentionally removed access to and sought to delegitimise these food systems (necessary to Indigenous food security), creating a reliance on Western food sources and practices to ensure health and food security. This problematic rupture is sustained by the CCHS today. Partly as a response to this legacy and this imposed Western notion of food security, many Indigenous communities now seek to emphasise the importance of their food systems for food security through education of children. This edu- cation involves record making and revitalising the food systems: actively engaging with sup- pressed practices and knowledge on the land. The intention is that this next generation of children will be able to fish, harvest seaweed, collect edible plants, hunt, prepare and share food according to traditional protocols and pass these practices on for not only physical but also cultural and spiritual survival. As will be explored below, the following two interven- tions aim to do just that: they provide creative outlets for telling the neglected realities of food (in)security through visual record making by young people, and they support revitalisa- tion through place-based, experiential learning activities of young people with their elders. These projects took place on and off Indigenous reservations on Vancouver Island, BC, and included participants from both locations.

As a facilitator and researcher in these projects, steered by Indigenous community, I fol- lowed a participatory action research (PAR) method in keeping with Freire’s (2000) work.

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These projects were therefore dictated by community need for increased access to traditional foods, and new records of food knowledge to preserve this knowledge, which support Indige- nous food system revitalisation. This PAR moves away from a positivist, extractivist frame- work, in which engagements are viewed as data to be collected, as this framework is directly linked to colonial frameworks that have served to oppress, according to Indigenous critical theorists Grande (2015) and Smith (2012). Instead, this work unfolded according to Indige- nous methodologies: on the land, and through storytelling. In addition to Indigenous peda- gogies, these activities were facilitated in accordance to Freire’s (2000) work on transformative learning, which places a focus on action and reflection. These stories and actions ‘feed into’ the Indigenous communities and larger food security discourses, rather than being data ‘collected from’ them.

Passing on knowledge of food systems to younger generations has been identified as a top priority for ensuring the survival and flourishing of Indigenous communities (Turner and others, 2013). To help facilitate this, British Columbia Elders called for new educational resources to engage all children on these matters from a young age (39th British Columbia Elders Gathering, 2015). Children, seen as a key to knowledge preservation in Indigenous communities, are considered to play an important role in revitalisation. Placing importance on children’s roles in revitalisation does not imply they bear the responsibility for the food systems. Instead, the responsibility is seen as intergenerational (primarily elders and children working in tandem). Including children in this way reveals Indigenous views of childhood: children are not blank slates, but respected and agential beings who inherit wisdom of their ancestors (ibid). In response to this call, I have been involved in two revitalisation projects with young people: Food is Medicine and Our Food Speaks, explored below.

Case study 1: food is medicine project

The aim and spirit: Indigenous food system revitalisation through land and story

The Food is Medicine project, facilitates experiential learning opportunities for young people through collecting, preparing and eating traditional food and reflecting through artwork. It recognises the necessity of Indigenous food system revitalisation and places children and youth at the heart of these efforts. The project, which takes place on WS�ANE�C and other Indigenous territories on Vancouver Island, is supported by Vancouver Island Health (led by Dietician Fiona Devereaux), the Capital Regional District and the Victoria Foundation. Below, I will describe the methods for facilitating these experiential learning opportunities and then outline the two stages through which the project unfolded: firstly, place-based activities and secondly, record making and reflective activities.

The method: place-based, experiential learning and visual record making

The value of experiential learning, and specifically place-based learning, is central to Indigenous pedagogy and widely supported by pedagogical research (Hooks, 1994; Kolb, 1981; Mezirow, 2000). This approach is of particular benefit in the context of these two projects, as engaging directly in the food systems seeks to increase access to support revi- talisation and food security, and in so doing emphasises agency. In first stage of each event, children and youth, guided by elders and other leaders in their community, partici- pate in place-based, or experiential activities. Place-based learning is central to Indigenous methodologies and pedagogies and suggests the land is always a generative part of knowl- edge production — that it is a teacher requiring respect and careful attention (Grande, 2015; Smith, 2012).

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Stage 1: Place-based experiential learning

To illustrate this process, I will elaborate on one experiential learning activity: the medicinal and edible plant walks. During these walks, elders and other knowledge holders, for instance, community-engaged scholars from the University of Victoria (like ethnobotanist Dr. Nancy Turner) and a Community Dietitian (Fiona Devereaux), led groups of young participants through wooded trails and sea-side ecosystems to learn about plants of the region forming a key part of the Indigenous food system. The plant learning extends well beyond simple iden- tification. These activities have a multi-lingual component: elders generally give the plant names in their Indigenous language as well as English. The traditional and modern uses of the plants for sustenance, medicine and ceremony are discussed, while participants are invited to feel, smell and at times harvest and taste the plant.

Often elders’ and other Indigenous knowledge holders’ descriptions of the plants and their food or medicinal uses involve storytelling, another central component of Indigenous peda- gogy and record keeping for Indigenous communities throughout Canada. The knowledge holders may discuss their personal memories of collecting, preparing and using these plants or give a historical or mythological background for the plant in that region, while children add their experiences of eating and harvesting these plants and ask questions. Furthermore, the spiritual relationship with the plant and traditional protocol for collecting the plant is carefully discussed. In almost all cases, according to participating elders and Indigenous scholars alike, the guiding rule for collecting plants is to first give thanks to the plant and creator, and take a modest amount, which allows the plant to continue thriving (LaRiviere CM and Crawford SS). Following this discussion, some plants may be carefully collected by the group. The children and youth are then given the opportunity to make food and medi- cine with the plants such as tea from yarrow leaf, or desserts from salmon berries and salal berries. While sharing food, the young participants also learn or practice the cultural proto- cols around eating and feasting: often an elder will give thanks for the food and young peo- ple will serve elders first before eating themselves. Following a similar experiential process, the participants also engage in native plant gardening, clearing invasive species, baking and cooking with traditional ingredients at schools, and pitcooking (a traditional form of food preparation on hot stones in covered holes) by the ocean and in school yards.

Stage 2: visual record-making

The second stage of the activities involves record making and reflective work, which provide children and youth an opportunity to convey their learning through writing, illustration, col- lage, digital image creation and photography. The image below was generated after a tradi- tional food day at Ƚ�AU, WELṈEW Elementary school on the Tartlip reserve near Victoria, BC. Students from the SEN�COTEN immersion program (ages 5–7) were involved in harvesting and discussing edible plants from the native plant garden, then prepared and ate the native plants (along with a variety of traditional foods prepared for the feast, like grilled clams). First, students recorded their experiences picking, preparing and eating traditional foods through illustration in their own food journals. Having been taught about the ‘salmon peo- ple’ by their elders, that is, the Indigenous belief held by many that salmon are spiritual beings and relatives to humans, students were provided an outline of a salmon and asked to see themselves in the salmon (Kirk, 1986) (Figure 1).

The level of connectivity between human and ‘more-than-human’ beings, such as salmon, to the extent that they are viewed as a type of relative, lends a new depth to the idiom ‘you are what you eat’. As Reading noted above, for many Indigenous peoples, selfhood is very tied up in what and how one eats. Furthermore, with this connectivity, of course, comes an

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enhanced sense of responsibility to the more-than-human world making up the Indigenous food systems. In the record-making activity, participants drew a self-portrait with the under- standing that it would be collaged with their classmates’ portraits inside the salmon outline to build a collective record. Seeing the children’s faces in the salmon, and understanding the deep cultural, social, spiritual linkages to food, it becomes obvious that access to traditional foods is more than a ‘food preference’ as it might be characterised by the Canadian govern- ment in documents like the CCHS (CCHS, 2012).

Output and impact: social marketing campaign

This collaboratively developed salmon poster is one of a series of posters produced through the different experiential and reflective activities with children and youth. These posters form a social marketing campaign to both raise awareness in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities of the nature and significance of Indigenous food systems, and serve as a record for the participating Indigenous of their traditional food knowledge. These are dis- tributed to local organisations doing food security and food sovereignty work, schools, city buses and community centres. It is the intention that in raising visibility and awareness, these institutions to will begin to find ways to enhance Indigenous access to their food sys- tems (for instance: schools starting native plant gardens, and local governments providing grants for hands on learning in local food systems). As the name Food is Medicine suggests, participants engage with food in a radically different way than the CCHS: through collecting and preparing food from their traditional territories, telling and hearing stories about these practices, Indigenous children see food not as bare nutrients but as medicine for their bodies and spirits, which connects them to long histories.

Case study 2: our food speaks

Aims and spirit: critical discussions and illustrations of the food we eat

In this second creative intervention I have employed the dynamism of picture books to engage children and youth in thinking about and acting on food security and Indigenous

Figure 1. Food is medicine collaborative salmon people poster. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

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food systems. Below I outline strategies I have employed to facilitate discussions and visual narratives on Indigenous food security with children and youth from ages 5 to 12, and con- sider how this can provide nuance to the insufficient picture that CCHS paints. To do this in a concrete way, I concentrate on one group of participants in Alert Bay, BC (home of the Namgis First Nation), and the way our participatory sessions unfolded. Before describing this project itself, however, I provide a brief rationale for the use of picture books as a tool for engaging children in this context.

Methods: problem-posing, critical dialogue and visual record making through picture books

This project follows Freire’s work on transformative learning using ‘problem posing methods’ (Freire, 2000). It seeks to engage children in critical dialogue on Indigenous food systems in the first stage of this project, which is then reflected in the children’s visual narratives in the second stage. If, as Paulo Freire asserts, ‘it is in speaking their word that people, by naming the world, transform it, dialogue imposes itself as the way by which they achieve signifi- cance as human beings’, then it is crucial that children are included in social dialogue that has been typically reserved for adults (Freire, 2000, p. 69).

Picture books as a mode of expression present an excellent opportunity for this critical reflection. That picture books stimulate critical engagement has been widely documented (Arizpe and others, 2014; Lewis, 2012; Salisbury and Styles, 2012). This is often attributed to their interplay of images and words that create rich ‘textual gaps’ in which readers can rumi- nate and their complex compositional structures (Lewis, 2001, Salisbury and Styles, 2012). Crucially, picture books have been identified as culturally responsive texts by various Indige- nous Canadian pedagogues, as they embody oral and visual story-telling that is central to traditional pedagogy (Currie and Kaminski, 2009).

Stage 1 – thinking about stories: savouring effective picture books

To prepare participants for making their own visual narratives, I began by turning to inspir- ing picture book examples and teasing out with participants the effective literary devices they employ. In particular, I opened our discussions about anthropomorphising in story- telling, which later acts as a useful approach for participants to think through and express food security issues and Indigenous food systems. This, of course, is a very familiar concept to young people, and when asked to provide examples of anthropomorphising, many are readily given from animated movies, and some from regional Indigenous oral history. We discussed why this has become a common way of telling stories, with a range of explana- tions coming from the group. I wrote ‘anthropomorphise’ on the board and together we defined the term. Students were given the opportunity to draw or write their own definition for the term, giving their own examples. We then spent some time flagging examples in the picture books provided to share with the group.

Stage 2 — thinking about food: dialogue on food miles

I aimed for our participatory sessions to be a time to explore the complex processes underly- ing the food we eat, and our relationships with that food and different food systems. Specifi- cally, I aimed for us all to ruminate on how we get our food, where it comes from, how it make us feel, who taught us to cook it, how we eat it and so on. To provide an avenue for expressing these thoughts for the 5–12 age group, I had participants start to think about ‘food miles’ by anthropomorphising a local food and an imported food. Taking several bana- nas and cardboard cut-outs of salmon, and scattering them across the workspace, we started to bring these two familiar food items to life. Each participant ascribed human names, ages,

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jobs, lifestyles and other human attributes to their salmon and banana based on places from which the food came. The students knew salmon came from the oceans and rivers around their home (Alert Bay), but they were less certain of the banana’s origins. I asked participants to check the produce stickers on the bananas for some information, and they found the loca- tion: Ecuador. Doing an online search on my computer and their devices, some of the older participants discovered that Ecuador is roughly 6493 miles from Alert Bay.

I wrote these details onto a food miles chart I had prepared in advance. We briefly dis- cussed the idea of ‘food miles’ (e.g. the energy/fuel it takes to transport food from where its origins to where it will be sold and eaten). Many participants expressed both a pride about their local salmon and surprise that bananas (which are one of the most commonplace fruits in the average Canadian household) come from such a long way away. The spirit behind this was not to condemn imported foods (which in some cases have a lower carbon impact than local foods) but to support a critical consciousness of where food comes from, and what that means for the land and our lives (Figure 2).

When brainstorming names and other qualities of their anthropomorphised food, the ideas for a salmon character were produced with ease, which seemed to reflect not only exposure to this fish on their dinner plates but also cultural importance of local food and traditional food practices. It became clear quite quickly that my knowledge of salmon was not nearly as extensive as the children’s. Many thought of Kwak’wala names to give the salmon character, or used the names of a friend — some drew on traditional mythology of the salmon to develop its character: smart and strong. Many participants could describe the homes of their salmon character in detail based on factual details of the Nimpkish River where they live locally. Some participants used technical terms for salmons’ stages of development (e.g. I am a fry [baby] or smolt [teenager]) to indicate the age of their salmon character. The group struggled to do the same for the imported banana. The group (as I imagine is the case for most Canadian children) had very little knowledge of Ecuador, like what kind of terrain is

Figure 2. Food miles chart. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

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common there, what the climate is like or what language is spoken. Many were unsure of how the bananas were grown. Participants once again turned to their devices to do an online search on Ecuador and, gaining a few facts that they shared with the group, each participant imaginatively filled in the gaps when developing their banana characters.

Anthropomorphising allowed children to visualise the journey that the food had taken to arrive at the store rather than simply identifying the food as ‘imported’. It was also a useful device to foster participants’ expression while we created our food narratives. It allowed for a comfortable weaving of factual and imaginative details — as the process of imported food is generally veiled, as the consumption of exotic produce from the grocery store has become naturalised, we are all required to fill in the gaps of knowledge. This is an important critical practice, which the kids enjoyed.

Participants were then given a table full of art supplies and we made colourful drafts of our double-page spreads by including their notes from the brainstorming. Especially for younger participants, the illustrative aspect of the brainstorming allowed for more fluid expression, reflecting what Salisbury and Styles observe: ‘what children can‘t always express in words, they can often demonstrate in their visual work’ (Salisbury and Styles, 2012). They used these drafts for their final activity of the double-page spread.

Output and impact: visual narratives

Using a large white paper folded in half, to represent the gutter of a picture book, partici- pants created their double-paged spreads. Some much younger participants chose to glue the card cut-outs of salmons and bananas I had prepared and embellish them before adding their narratives. Other slightly older participants completed their own drawings and used a fair bit of text or dialogue, looking at picture book examples to get a sense of layout. Many partici- pants were proud of their work and encouraged to make their own complete picture books at home. Unlike the Food is Medicine project, the outputs of this project were not disseminated, but retained by the participants with the central goal of supporting engagement with (or generating critical consciousness of) their local food systems. This, Freire suggests engenders further praxis and transformation (Figure 3).

Conclusion

This article opened with a discussion of the significant oversights of the CCHS in measuring food security in Canada. Namely, I addressed the exclusion of many Indigenous peoples liv- ing on reservations and homeless populations in its survey, and perhaps most significantly: the lack of consideration given to Indigenous food systems in shaping food security. While generations of Indigenous children in residential schools were targeted by assimilationist policies, Indigenous children today are seen by their communities as key agents of change. The projects, which have been discussed in this article, embrace this notion. Crucially, these creative acts encourage praxis and add young voices to the discussion of food security in Canada, which official studies like the CCHS occlude.

If Canada is to address the food insecurity faced by Indigenous communities, understand- ing what food security means for these communities, and particularly the children most affected, is vital. It is for this reason that this article suggests creative interventions that engage children in dialogue and telling their stories is a small but important step in this direction. In sharing these stories with public institutions (for instance, Food Is Medicine dis- seminating posters to different food security working groups in Victoria’s city hall), it is the hope of this work that there will be an increased awareness that it is necessary to attend to Indigenous food systems in order to attend to Indigenous food insecurity.

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Both of these projects indicate the place-based methods young people (with elders) can use to access their food systems, which gives way to grassroots revitalisation. The empower- ment of both young and old through this hands-on education could mean that the over- whelming need and desire of Indigenous peoples to restore access to traditional foods, to remain connected to important practices, and achieve more food secure lives will be increas- ingly met on their terms (Chan and others, 2011). Freire (2000) stresses that communities impacted by oppression must steer change, however, he also underscores the need for oppressive systems themselves to follow this lead and participate in change.

It is incumbent on the Canadian and provincial governments to recognise the connection between access to Indigenous food systems and the ability of Indigenous peoples to attain food security. While I would suggest that the strictures of national surveys present a very limited way to evaluate food security to begin with, at present they are a key form of data collection whose results greatly impact policy and perception. In lieu of a much more holistic approach, these surveys must at least reflect culturally relevant notions of food security for Indigenous peoples. It can begin to do so by including questions that address if and how often Indigenous peoples are able to access and eat food from their food systems. Designing these questions and the entire data collection process must involve meaningful consultation and leadership from Indigenous peoples. Including children3 in such questionnaires is also crucial in order to hear the voices of those most impacted by food insecurity in Canada. Considering revitalisation efforts are directed at children, they will likely be the best barome- ter of whether access to Indigenous food systems improves.

Given the import of Indigenous food systems for sustenance as well as cultural and spiri- tual health, and considering this access to vital food systems has been seriously hindered or eliminated by colonial practices, it is necessary for the state to provide protections and pro- visions for improved access to these food systems on Indigenous terms. Funding and support for self-governed programmes such a native food gardening at schools and communities,

Figure 3. Participants working on their final food narratives. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

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and more place-based education programmes such as Food Is Medicine — which focus on providing young people with access to Indigenous Food Systems — will be key in this pro- cess of growing a more food secure future.

Acknowledgements

The two projects outlined in this article are the result of energetic engagement, creativity and knowledge of the Tartlip, Tseycum and Tsawuot First Nations (on Vancouver Island), and Namgis First Nations (on Cormorant Island) in British Columbia, Canada. It is on their land and through their careful stewardship that revitalisation can grow. The Food is Medicine project is also brought to life by the wonderful coordination and support of Fiona Devereaux in not only her role of Dietician for Island Health but in her long-standing friendship with these Vancouver Island communities. My sister, Jenny Bagelman, has also contributed much creative energy Food is Medicine and catalysed own my involvement in the project.

Notes

1 This paper submits that for Indigenous communities in Canada, food security (which is generally understood to be the ability of people to have regular access to sufficient, nutri- tious food to maintain an active, healthy life) is directly linked to Indigenous food systems. That is, being able to access traditional foods is key to maintaining life. Not only have tradi- tional foods been found to be excellent for health, but the act of picking, fishing or hunting for food on traditional territories is also directly linked to well-being.

2 Indigenous reservations or ‘reserves’ are small areas of land set aside for Indigenous peo- ples by the crown (or Canadian state) following the Indian Act (1876). ‘Off-reservation’ sug- gests that one lives outside of these areas. There are greater rates of poverty on reservations. In particular, 60% of Indigenous children living on reservations are in poverty, compared to 40% off-reservation (Policy Alternatives of Canada, 2017).

3 Given the anonymity of the surveys for CCHS, and the ability to attain parental consent, including children in this data collection in an age-appropriate manner (with tailored ques- tions) does not pose ethical concerns nor risk to the child.

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Correspondence to: Dr. Caroline Bagelman, Lecturer, Liverpool Hope University, 19 The Gallery, Sandon Street, Flat

3, Liverpool L8 7NS, UK, Tel.: 07856677630. E-mail: [email protected]

Accepted for publication 15 December 2017

Contributor’s details

Caroline Bagelman recently completed her doctorate in Education at the University of Glas- gow, where she specialised in children’s literature and critical pedagogy to support social justice learning. In particular, she is focused on concrete approaches to decolonising educa- tion in Canada. Her participatory action research with Indigenous communities has employed creative methods to facilitate the self-representation of Indigenous children and youth on topics relating to food security, food sovereignty and Indigenous food systems. She is cur- rently a Lecturer of Education Studies at Liverpool Hope University where she continues to explore the intersections of education and social justice through her teaching and research.

232 Caroline Bagelman

https://doi.org/10.17269/cjph.96.1503

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