The nature of food: indigenous Dene foodways and ontologies in the era of climate change
Climate change leading to a drastic decline in caribou populations has prompted strict hunting regulations in Canada’s Northwest Territories since 2010. The Dene, a subarctic indigenous people, have responded by turning to tradition and calling for more respectful hunting to demonstrate respectful r...
| Published in: | Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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Donner Institute
2015
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67455 https://doaj.org/article/a1dfdf8a2a9a47c58a0f5ca55538716c |
| Summary: | Climate change leading to a drastic decline in caribou populations has prompted strict hunting regulations in Canada’s Northwest Territories since 2010. The Dene, a subarctic indigenous people, have responded by turning to tradition and calling for more respectful hunting to demonstrate respectful reciprocity to the caribou, including a community-driven foodways project on caribou conservation and Dene caribou conservation which I co-facilitated in 2011. In these ways the caribou is approached as a person. Dene responses to caribou decline can best be understood by ontological theories of an expanded notion of indigenous personhood. However, I argue these theories are inadequate without an attention to foodways, specifically the getting, sharing, and returning of food to the land. The necessity of sustenance reveals a complicated relationship of give-and-take between humans and caribou, negotiated by tradition, yet complicated by the contemporary crisis. |
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