A Moment of Reckoning: Reconciliation Through Decolonial Prefiguration in a Food Movement Organization

• Main Author: Elliott, Heather
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Canada; First Nations
• Online Access: https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/987968/; https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/987968/1/Elliott_MSc_S2021.pdf

There is an increasing recognition that settler colonialism is a root cause of food insecurity for Indigenous Peoples, and that it is also a contributor to the food insecurity of Black people and people of colour. Recent research reveals stark racial disparities, with food insecurity 4.3 times higher in Indigenous households and 2.6 times higher in Black households compared with white households (First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study, 2019; Statistics Canada, 2017). Food movements are a forum through which multiple groups seek to address the lived experience of inequity. However, as predominantly white/settler-led, food movement organizations fail to adequately address the unequal impacts of food injustice and may even be complicit in perpetuating colonial and racist structures and processes. In this research, I examine a specific “moment of reckoning” at Food Secure Canada’s 2018 Assembly, arguably the largest food movement event in Canada, and its aftermath through the analysis of 124 qualitative questionnaires, ten interviews and participant observation. Using two foundational treaties as a conceptual framework, this case study demonstrates how by refusing settler processes and structures to make space for resurgence, Indigenous Peoples, Black people and people of colour are creating the conditions needed for reconciliation as transformation, rather than assimilation. This study also shows the importance of white/settlers responding by taking on the work of personal (un)learning and making concrete organizational change to governance and procedures in order to enact their distinct responsibilities to decolonize in order to reconcile with Indigenous Peoples, Black people and people of colour. The lessons learned apply widely across community organizations, advocacy groups and social movement spaces as well as public and private institutions working towards reconciliation and decolonization.