From Garden Warriors to Good Seeds: Defining and Enacting Food Sovereignty in Native American Communities

This talk explores how food sovereignty as a concept and method is being described, defined, and enacted by Native American farmers and gardeners across the US, and how these definitions are being operationalized in the broader goals of promoting community health and the reclamation and maintenance of tribal culture. Drawing on a decade spent volunteering with and conducting interviews with Indigenous farming projects and Native American chefs across the United States; meetings with members of Indigenous seed keeping alliances and heritage seed restoration projects; and my experiences as a board member of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, this talk expands the discussion around food and seed sovereignty to include the contributions of Native chefs, seed keepers, and anti-extractive protest movements.