Indigenous Food Sovereignty: Literature Review

Robert M. Hansell

doi:10.63428/7zjhvq86

Indigenous Food Sovereignty: Literature Review

Robert M. Hansell

Volume 24, Number 2 (2025) 24 (2): 147-184

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.63428/7zjhvq86

Keywords Indigenous food sovereignty, Indigenous peoples, food systems, colonialism, traditional food systems, health, law, social perceptions, free trade, data ownership, anticolonial resistance, seed saving, food security, Indigenous health, cultural sovereignty, political nature of food systems, academic literature

Abstract

Indigenous peoples have practiced food systems intertwined with the plants, animals, lands, and waters around them for thousands of years. These connections have frequently been severed by colonialism, producing devastating effects on Indigenous health, culture, and sovereignty. In the face of this devastation, the reflourishing of Indigenous food sovereignty constitutes a critical form of resistance. This paper provides a broad review of the academic literature on Indigenous food sovereignty, analyzing themes and case studies. This paper argues that 5 themes (health, law and the state, social perceptions of food, gender, and free trade) reflect helpful entry points for understanding this multidimensional topic. The case studies detail important aspects of food sovereignty, such as data ownership, anticolonial resistance, relationality, and seed saving. First, background on traditional food systems is given, followed by an exploration of food sovereignty, Indigenous food sovereignty, and food security in common literature. Five themes are used to ground Indigenous food sovereignty in key debates and challenges. Using the five case studies, this review aims to give the reader a sense of the inherently political nature of food systems in the experiences of Indigenous peoples by touching on a wide set of illustrative texts, examples, and cases.