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Aboriginal Food
"The colonial impact on indigenous people's food practices was cataclysmic and its effects still reverberate today."[footnoteRef:1] Food has therefore become one of the most important issues for aboriginal people, on a practical and immediate level and also on a global, political, and policy level. Causes of aboriginal food insecurity include prejudicial or ethnocentric food policies and programs; disruption of indigenous communities and lifestyles; poverty; and rapid dietary changes due to social migration and other factors. Effects of aboriginal food insecurity include major public health problems; exacerbation of poverty; and the ongoing dismantling of valuable societies, cultures, and social institutions. Geography and food are practically inseparable, as food resources are an element of space and place. Politics and food are also inextricably entwined. The interaction between people and the land creates a multidimensional landscape revealing the ways space, place, and people interact. Politics and human rights issues continue to impact food diversity, food traditions, and food security among the indigenous people of Canada. [1: Foley, Wendy. "Tradition and Change in Urban Indigenous Food Practices." Postcolonial Studies. (2005) 8:1, p. 25]
Ethnocentric politics and policy has impacted food diversity among aboriginal people, often increasing food diversity but at the expense of health, sustainability, and cultural integrity. Food diversity is defined as consuming "probably 20-30 biologically different distinct foods over the course of a week."[footnoteRef:2] Ensuring food diversity is especially important among aging people, whose nutritional needs require nutrient-dense foods.[footnoteRef:3] Food diversity is "contingent on biodiversity" in any given area, as well as dependent on the access to or presence of trade routes.[footnoteRef:4] Urbanization has therefore had a paradoxical impact on food diversity in the diets of Canadian aboriginal people. While urbanization "distances people from the origin of their food," it can also ensure greater availability and adequacy of food " irrespective of season, climate or distant conflict."[footnoteRef:5] When crafting public policy related to food diversity among Canadian aboriginal people, non-traditional approaches to diet and nutrition have been imposed on indigenous people with relatively poor results. Thus, it is important to...
Ethnocentrism places an undue burden on indigenous communities to envision an artificial concept of food diversity that ignores the intimate relationship between space, place, and people. [2: Wahlqvist, Mark L. "Diversification in Indigenous and Ethnic Food Culture." Diet Diversification and Health Promotion. Forum Nutr. (Ed.) I. Elmadfa. Basel, Karger, 2005:57. Pp 52-61. Online.] [3: Wahlqvist, Mark L. "Diversification in Indigenous and Ethnic Food Culture." Diet Diversification and Health Promotion. Forum Nutr. (Ed.) I. Elmadfa. Basel, Karger, 2005:57. Pp 52-61. Online.] [4: Wahlqvist, Mark L. "Diversification in Indigenous and Ethnic Food Culture." Diet Diversification and Health Promotion. Forum Nutr. (Ed.) I. Elmadfa. Basel, Karger, 2005:57., p. 52. ] [5: Wahlqvist, Mark L. "Diversification in Indigenous and Ethnic Food Culture." Diet Diversification and Health Promotion. Forum Nutr. (Ed.) I. Elmadfa. Basel, Karger, 2005:57, p. 52]
Therefore, it is critical to define, analyze, and respect traditional food, traditional food cultures, and traditional food practices. Traditional food is defined as "being composed of items from the local, natural environment that are culturally accessible."[footnoteRef:6] The term "anthropological nutrition" is a helpful one for re-conceptualizing the nature of nutrition and food policy among indigenous people who do not need to consume items like arugula or brown rice.[footnoteRef:7] Anthropological nutrition also takes into consideration issues like food sharing, harvesting, ceremonial feasting, and other rituals. Among many aboriginal people, traditional diets that have sustained cultures for centuries or longer do not resemble the modern urban Canadian diet with its access to foodstuffs like lettuce greens or whole grains. Cultural practices related to food also differ. Food policies and programs also need to be locally valid and locally relevant[footnoteRef:8] [6: Kuhnlein, Harriet V. Receveur, Oliver. "Dietary Change and Traditional Food Systems of Indigenous Peoples." Annual Reviews, Nutrition. 1996:16, p. 417.] [7: Kuhnlein, Harriet V. Receveur, Oliver. "Dietary Change and Traditional Food Systems of Indigenous Peoples." Annual Reviews, Nutrition. 1996:16, p. 418] [8: Wadden, Joanne. "De-linking From Dependency; Indigenous Food Sovereignty Brings Together Land, Food and Health." Briar…
References
Damman, Siri. Barth Edie, Wenche. Kuhnlein V Harriet. "Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition Transition in a Right To Food Perspective." Science Direct. Food Policy (2008): 33, 135-55. Online.
FAO (2013). The right to food and indigenous peoples. Retrieved online: http://www.fao.org/righttofood/publications/publications-detail/en/c/49285/
Foley, Wendy. "Tradition and Change in Urban Indigenous Food Practices." Postcolonial Studies. (2005) 8:1. Pp 25-44. Online.
Kuhnlein, Harriet V. Receveur, Oliver. "Dietary Change and Traditional Food Systems of Indigenous Peoples." Annual Reviews, Nutrition. 1996:16. Pp. 417-42. Re-circulated by the University of Manitoba 08/29/08. Online.
The lack of inclusion of aboriginal representation at the policy making level is also regarded as an insurmountable barrier to formulating adequate health policies as regards the indigenous population of Australia. (Matthew, Pulver, & Ring 2008) In Australia alone, a proliferation of data illustrates the extent to which our half million Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live in disadvantaged social conditions relative to other Australians. The level of disadvantage has
Rainbow's End Play Critique -- Rainbow's End The story told in Rainbow's End is shared by three generations of Aboriginal women living in a ramshackle shanty located on the Goulburn River flats in regional Victoria in the 1950s. Nan Dear is the reserved elder, Gladys is the easy-going mother, and Dolly is the daughter of this self-contained tribe of women. The family portrait is chock-a-bloc with issues that are currently relevant: individual
Colonization on Indigenous Communities Indigenous communities survive a long history of significant influence of the colonial rulers. In the contemporary space, some think that the indigenous communities to have undergone significant resistant and struggle in the hands of the colonialists. While most communities consider colonialism to have brought considerable losses that are central to healing in the current world, some see it as a source of opportunities that opened the
In the 1960s and 1970s contributors noted the poor status of Indigenous children on measures of formal educational outcomes in comparison to the rest of the population. Suitable solutions ranged from the use of coercive measures to increase school attendance, to new curricula and teaching styles so that teachers were better attuned to the ‘learner’s frame of reference’. These alternative approaches could be characterized as those focused on behavioral
Colonization Features of colonization The present day global stratification is a result of the colonization and conquest by European nations of the indigenous nations most of which were in Africa. Direct colonization largely ended but the ideology that came with colonization still lingers on in people's identity within their cultural spheres as well as their political, social and economic practices. Colonization began with entry of the colonizers forcefully into the indigenous nations.
Some Chinese researchers assert that Chinese flutes may have evolved from of Indian provenance. In fact, the kind of side-blown, or transverse, flutes musicians play in Southeast Asia have also been discovered in Africa, India, Saudi Arabia, and Central Asia, as well as throughout the Europe of the Roman Empire. This suggests that rather than originating in China or even in India, the transverse flute might have been adopted through the