Two-eyed Seeing and Food Sovereignty
After reading Deer and Falkenburg’s chapter about Indigenous food sovereignty and how it relates to food security as well as watching the video (below) Two-Eyed Seeing by Elder Albert, his wife Elder Murdena, and their colleague Dr. Cheryl Bartlett, I couldn’t help but see how the two concepts were connected in many ways.
Albert and Murdena talk about how traditional indigenous knowledge and western science can no longer be seen as competing and separate views, but as two ways of seeing the same concept from different perspectives. This is beautifully related to the ideas of ‘upskilling’ Indigenous food practices. It is bringing two vast knowledge bases together to create innovative solutions to extremely complete problems.
Deer and Falkenburg’s chapter talks about their research that:
“explored the ways in which urban communities and organizations can ‘upskill’ Indigenous food practices such as food growing, harvesting, and production to diminish food insecurity and promote principles of Indigenous Food Sovereignty (IFS) within an urban context”
In the past, I’ve explored interconnectedness in the natural world, even using a garden as an example with young students. Something I have not explored is the interconnectedness of knowledge from a social perspective and I would like to explore this further.
Something that I take away from Deer and Falkenburg’s research is that idea of Food Sovereignty. This is a new term for me and I am in love with it. The notion of sovereignty is a huge part of relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples with food sovereignty as a facet of it. This really made me reflect on my own community and how food security affects it.
Albert and Murdena talk about how traditional indigenous knowledge and western science can no longer be seen as competing and separate views, but as two ways of seeing the same concept from different perspectives. This is beautifully related to the ideas of ‘upskilling’ Indigenous food practices. It is bringing two vast knowledge bases together to create innovative solutions to extremely complete problems.
Deer and Falkenburg’s chapter talks about their research that:
“explored the ways in which urban communities and organizations can ‘upskill’ Indigenous food practices such as food growing, harvesting, and production to diminish food insecurity and promote principles of Indigenous Food Sovereignty (IFS) within an urban context”
In the past, I’ve explored interconnectedness in the natural world, even using a garden as an example with young students. Something I have not explored is the interconnectedness of knowledge from a social perspective and I would like to explore this further.
Something that I take away from Deer and Falkenburg’s research is that idea of Food Sovereignty. This is a new term for me and I am in love with it. The notion of sovereignty is a huge part of relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples with food sovereignty as a facet of it. This really made me reflect on my own community and how food security affects it.
Exploring Interconnectedness for Food Security
Living an hour from Winnipeg, our local grocery stores are still competing with people making a Cost-co run and are losing the battle. Our school sits in a small town with First Nations reserves on either side of it, neither of which have a grocery store. We do a lot at the school to encourage gardening and taking control of your food supply with students but it hasn’t translated into food security yet. The readings got me thinking about how I could work with our communities to move from school-based gardening programs to ones that were more inclusive of the community at large. How can communities take back control of our food in a meaningful way?
One of the ways that really stuck out to me from the research was sharing “food as ceremony.” It’s about respect – especially the respect - and respect of the growth. It’s another life that you’re bringing and growing, and you’re harvesting that life form in a respectful way and putting it in your body. There’s that circle of life happening. This is something I would like to explore further in my classroom. I would love to help teach kids to respect how their food got to them.
One of the ways that really stuck out to me from the research was sharing “food as ceremony.” It’s about respect – especially the respect - and respect of the growth. It’s another life that you’re bringing and growing, and you’re harvesting that life form in a respectful way and putting it in your body. There’s that circle of life happening. This is something I would like to explore further in my classroom. I would love to help teach kids to respect how their food got to them.
Although food security is a huge problem, I can see a really big opportunity in our community as well. Teaching students about the interconnectedness of soil, water, plants, and food (not to mention people) is such an easy way to help them become aware. I always think that once you see and touch the connections in nature, you will start finding them everywhere.
We’ve started plants in our classroom a few weeks ago and helped our custodians get the flower beds ready but today was the first day that the grade 1s got to get into the food gardens. We picked weeds and dug around for thirty minutes today and I wish I had recorded their conversations. Worms, centipedes, flowers, stems, Rabbit POOP!, and stems were all part of the conversation. The student’s may not know it, but they are more affluent in nature than they were before.
We’ve started plants in our classroom a few weeks ago and helped our custodians get the flower beds ready but today was the first day that the grade 1s got to get into the food gardens. We picked weeds and dug around for thirty minutes today and I wish I had recorded their conversations. Worms, centipedes, flowers, stems, Rabbit POOP!, and stems were all part of the conversation. The student’s may not know it, but they are more affluent in nature than they were before.
I am seeing the importance of food sovereignty, even with 5-7-year-olds. We choose what we want to eat because we choose what is going into our garden. I am interested to see if these kids might grow up to take back control of their food as adults as well.
I am going to use the final part of The Hidden Beauty of Pollination as the activator in our next unit about pollination and butterflies. The connections that are shown by the slow motion video are so beautiful, I am hoping it will inspire my K/1s to look very closely for beauty around the flowers in our new gardens.
O’Brien, C. (2016). Education for sustainable happiness and well-being. Basingstoke: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Deer, F., & Falkenberg, T. (Editors). (2017). Indigenous perspectives on education for well-being in Canada. Winnipeg: Education for Sustainable Well-Being Press.
Two-Eyed Seeing (2013, July 12). Retrieved May 23, 2017, from
https://youtu.be/_CY-iGduw5
The hidden beauty of pollination (2011, May 09). Retrieved May 23, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqsXc_aefKI
Williams, D., & Brown, J. (2013). Learning Gardens and Sustainability Education: Bringing Life to Schools and Schools to Life. Florence: Taylor and Francis.