This course focuses on health and well-being from an Indigenous lens. It utilizes medicine wheel framework to explore how food (our plant and animal relatives) is part of a sacred circle which allows us to acknowledge relational accountability and address how the revitalization and reclamation of our food systems can help repair the circle and help restore all aspects of wellness for ourselves, our communities, and our planet. It is part of a non-sequential series that examines historical injustices responsible for the complex and inequitable food systems we experience today, from an Indigenous lens and critical analyses. The course materials and structure honors grassroots efforts (both Indigenous and Western, and collaborations between) to bring control over food production & distribution, and restore the power of accessibility, back to the peoples most impacted.
Topics will include equity, food security, colonization and decolonization, traditional and ancestral foods & medicines, Tribal food sovereignty, local food production, human rights, the rights of nature, and activism. The goal of this course is to create a foundation of knowledge to support personal well-being and growth, further academic work, and civic engagement in the food sovereignty/food justice movements. Further discussions will include critical reflection of historical events and the current debates around food, agricultural systems and human and rights of nature in a local and global context, with an emphasis on social movements aimed at food justice and food security locally and throughout the United States.