Local Traditional/Country Food Processing and Food Sovereignty: Investigating the Political Challenges for an Indigenous Self-government to Self-Determine and Develop its Local Food System

Background: Climate change in tandem with previous colonial policies have severely impacted local traditional food systems, resulting in a disruption to traditional knowledge sharing, a greater reliance on market foods and disproportionate rates of food insecurity. Objectives: The purpose of this th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Judge, Connor
Format: Master Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of Waterloo 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10012/17091
Description
Summary:Background: Climate change in tandem with previous colonial policies have severely impacted local traditional food systems, resulting in a disruption to traditional knowledge sharing, a greater reliance on market foods and disproportionate rates of food insecurity. Objectives: The purpose of this thesis is to understand how an Indigenous self-government can leverage a mobile abattoir (also known as a trailer facility) to increase food access for community members. This pertains to understanding what is possible within the trailer facility as well as understanding the power of an Indigenous self-government in influencing policies that pertain to incorporating the trailer facility into the local food system. Methods: The methodology of this thesis is based upon the principles of participatory action research, evaluation, and settler colonial theory. Data was collected in interviews with trainees of the country food processing training course, surveys from community members and a title screening process of all the legislated acts and regulations in the Northwest Territories. Two different analyses were conducted. First, a reflexive thematic analysis of interview data from trainees of the course was used to inform a process evaluation on a country food processing training course held within the trailer facility. Second, an applied approach to Norman Fairclough’s (1989) critical discourse analysis was adapted to the policies identified within title screening process. The resulting data corpus was too large to incorporate into this applied thesis. Data reduction resulted in a data set of two contemporary treaty texts: The Sahtú Dene Métis Land Claim Agreement and the Délı̨ne Final Self-Government Agreement. Results: We found that the trailer facility was perceived to be a tool that could create employment opportunities, teach youth the importance of the traditional way and create traditional/country foods that cater to the food preferences of the community’s youth. The trailer facility was found to not be a viable ...