“The Recovery of the People Is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman
Abstract This essay turns to LaDuke’s literature and activism to explore ways in which contemporary Native American writers center their work around issues of food sovereignty, environmental protection, and economic self-determination as essential platforms for community regeneration, renewal, and s...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/ewcp/19/2/article-p121.xml https://www.sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 |
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crdegruyter:10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 2024-05-19T07:28:36+00:00 “The Recovery of the People Is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman Stanciu, Cristina 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/ewcp/19/2/article-p121.xml https://www.sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 en eng Walter de Gruyter GmbH http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 East-West Cultural Passage volume 19, issue 2, page 121-139 ISSN 2067-5712 journal-article 2019 crdegruyter https://doi.org/10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 2024-05-02T06:51:43Z Abstract This essay turns to LaDuke’s literature and activism to explore ways in which contemporary Native American writers center their work around issues of food sovereignty, environmental protection, and economic self-determination as essential platforms for community regeneration, renewal, and survival. I argue that Last Standing Woman (1997), Anishinaabe writer Winona LaDuke’s first novel, dramatizes many of these concerns at the heart of her activist and political work. Central to the novel Last Standing Woman is the significance of wild rice for the White Earth Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people of Minnesota. In Last Standing Woman, wild rice is not only a traditional and sustainable crop but also one that can ensure the livelihood of the community. At the heart of a feminist and activist novel like Last Standing Woman – as well as Winona LaDuke’s activist work, more broadly – is a twofold challenge, which resonates across much Native American writing: on the one hand, the challenge to preserve (existing resources, cultural practices, etc.); on the other, to recover the losses Native communities have suffered historically through colonization and its many consequences, such as the enormous loss of land suffered by the White Earth community. The turn to literature provides Winona LaDuke with a powerful site of political engagement, where she foregrounds issues of gender, tribal politics, and the environment at the same time as she tells a powerful story about Anishinaabe continued resilience. Article in Journal/Newspaper anishina* De Gruyter East-West Cultural Passage 19 2 121 139 |
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Abstract This essay turns to LaDuke’s literature and activism to explore ways in which contemporary Native American writers center their work around issues of food sovereignty, environmental protection, and economic self-determination as essential platforms for community regeneration, renewal, and survival. I argue that Last Standing Woman (1997), Anishinaabe writer Winona LaDuke’s first novel, dramatizes many of these concerns at the heart of her activist and political work. Central to the novel Last Standing Woman is the significance of wild rice for the White Earth Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people of Minnesota. In Last Standing Woman, wild rice is not only a traditional and sustainable crop but also one that can ensure the livelihood of the community. At the heart of a feminist and activist novel like Last Standing Woman – as well as Winona LaDuke’s activist work, more broadly – is a twofold challenge, which resonates across much Native American writing: on the one hand, the challenge to preserve (existing resources, cultural practices, etc.); on the other, to recover the losses Native communities have suffered historically through colonization and its many consequences, such as the enormous loss of land suffered by the White Earth community. The turn to literature provides Winona LaDuke with a powerful site of political engagement, where she foregrounds issues of gender, tribal politics, and the environment at the same time as she tells a powerful story about Anishinaabe continued resilience. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Stanciu, Cristina |
spellingShingle |
Stanciu, Cristina “The Recovery of the People Is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman |
author_facet |
Stanciu, Cristina |
author_sort |
Stanciu, Cristina |
title |
“The Recovery of the People Is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman |
title_short |
“The Recovery of the People Is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman |
title_full |
“The Recovery of the People Is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman |
title_fullStr |
“The Recovery of the People Is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman |
title_full_unstemmed |
“The Recovery of the People Is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman |
title_sort |
“the recovery of the people is tied to the recovery of food”: food sovereignty and winona laduke’s last standing woman |
publisher |
Walter de Gruyter GmbH |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/ewcp/19/2/article-p121.xml https://www.sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 |
genre |
anishina* |
genre_facet |
anishina* |
op_source |
East-West Cultural Passage volume 19, issue 2, page 121-139 ISSN 2067-5712 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.2478/ewcp-2019-0015 |
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East-West Cultural Passage |
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19 |
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2 |
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121 |
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139 |
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