Towards an Indigenist, Gaian pedagogy of food: Deimperializing foodScapes in the classroom

ABSTRACT

This study takes food as its scape to propose an Indigenist, Gaian pedagogy and asks what food studies might reveal ecopedagogically for approaches to teaching about Indigenous matters in the context of environmental education and its research. Drawing on empirical research about food and Indigenous-settler relations in Australia, and through analysis of data amassed from student assignments on food sources conducted over a six- year period, I find that there is resistance to taking an Indigenist approach to critical, place-based education (PBE) even as Indigenous scholarship argues for its urgent need. Even more muted is the recognition of Gaian understanding of the need to preserve the languages of “Scapes” to help with this work.

KEYWORDS:

• food
• food security
• gaia
• Indigenist pedagogy
• Indigenous rights
• place-based ecopedagogy
• sentience
• teacher education

Acknowledgments

Thanks first to N'Arweet Elder Carolyn Briggs, and Caroline Martin for your partnership and generosity in sharing knowledge about your precious estates, language, and aspirations, living and teaching as I do on Boonwurrung country.

Thanks also to Professor Henry Atkinson, Associate Professor Peter Anderson, and Bernadette Atkinson, for sharing the responsibility for teaching in the Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge for a Global World core unit of initial teacher education programs in the Faculty of Education, Monash University.

To Myra Tjumatja Watson, Emily Kampukuda Brown, Lois Peeler, Dhanggal Gurruwiwi, Stanley Kalkeeyorta, Ruby Hunter, Gladys Typingoompa, Joy Murphy-Wandin, Carol Garlett, Raymattja Marika, and Trudi Inkamala and their families, I offer my sincere thanks for your willingness to teach me about your estates, your country, and introduce me to food resources as an important aspect of my learning.

The underpinning research that informs this article was funded through an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant titled Food, Traditional Indigenous Australian Knowledge, and the Expansion of the Settler Economy (2008–2010). I wish to acknowledge and thank my research colleagues, Professor Lynette Russell and Professor Marcia Langton for the inspiration of their scholarship over many years. And finally, thanks to Phillip Payne for his robust and collegial engagement with these ideas, his editorial prowess, and his genuine commitment to being part of the change that must come.

Notes

1. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/endogenous

2. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/exogenous

3. Australia is in the process of implementing a new Australian Curriculum that, in addition to the Key Learning Areas, also requires teacher educators and teachers to engage with three Cross-curriculum priorities, two of which are of sharp relevance in this article: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures and Sustainability: https://australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/cross-curriculum-priorities/

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this research was provided by the Australian Research Council (DP0880570).