XIV. Community, Climate and Food

At Transplanting Traditions Community Farm in Chapel Hill, NC a group of Karen high schoolers are undertaking a project to record foodways that have previously only ever been oral and embodied. By interviewing community elders and documenting their recipes and stories the youth seek to breathe new life into a cuisine that has traveled from Myanmar with members of the global Karen diaspora. Through the cookbook project, the youth attend to the embodied labour of Karen farmers and cooks in re-creating home and more-than-human connections in diaspora. Since there is much regional variation in Karen dishes, I track how such variation is accounted for in the cookbook or moments when it is elided through the demands of fixity. The cookbook is poised to be a powerful example of the re-spatialization of food sovereignty amidst diasporic food landscapes. Here I explore the embodied labor and subjectivities produced by these processes.

In traditional Fijian communities, ecosystem services have allowed the iTaukei to remain resilient despite ongoing climate stressors. This relationship is often underexplored from local perspectives. Our research uses mental modeling to identify critical ecosystem services most valued in communities to learn about their ability to remain climate resilient in a changing environment. By co-creating mental models with local stakeholders, we document traditional and contemporary ecological knowledge, helping to facilitate a relationship between researchers and communities while centering on locals' most pressing climate concerns. We identify several shared ecosystem services, including fisheries supplementation, medicine, and the provisioning of culturally important forest products, that are most important to communities and can be used to gain a more in-depth understanding of resilient food systems under climate stress. This strategy allows us to better inform local ecosystem management, strategies for climate resilience, food sovereignty, and environmental sustainability.

Climate change impacts food sovereignty. Choices communities make to manifest that sovereignty fluctuate based on environmental conditions and resource access. To investigate how iTaukei communities balance risk of food production and access we conducted 71 surveys in three localities across Fiji. We questioned which foods were purchased from town, which foods were grown locally, and how different factors affected choices. Geography and extreme events influence food production while remoteness influences food access; this affects risk mitigation in communities. Our ordination analysis comparing food items clustered in town and village groups showed little overlap between community grown and purchased food, however, there was a higher degree of variation within the community grown foods. Purchased food and frequency of travel were consistent regardless of distance or cost of travel suggesting that items from towns were relatively inelastic to costs. We see iTaukei communities are splitting risks by maintaining two complementary food systems.

In Alaska, traditional diets center on meat and fish; yet, plants were widely used to supplement nutrition. Today, traditional foods – including plants – enjoy renewed attention because of their physical, social, and cultural health benefits and waning importance in people’s food practices. This research, conducted within the National Park Service and in partnership with Dena’ina stakeholders, will explore past and present uses of culinary plants. The projected impact of this research stems from knowledge sharing. Both rural and urban Dena’ina have access to plants, and foraging may offer culturally salient, rewarding outdoor activities, and a nutritious addition to contemporary diets. This presentation reviews the existing literature, and highlights the potential of foraging practices to sustain cultural connections while addressing contemporary food insecurity and nutritional challenges.

Yuca (cassava, manioc) is a tuber crop central to diets throughout the Amazon basin. It is represented by myriad cultivars, which vary substantially in growth rate, morphology, nutritional content, and other traits. In this study, we examined diversity in yuca cultivated by a Bora community in the Peruvian Amazon, and compared it with diversity across the surrounding region. We found that measures of single traits in Boran yuca overlapped with those of the broader region. However, their mean values were significantly different, and their variance was significantly lower. In addition, cyanide production by tubers, a key determinant of yuca cultivation and use, was two-fold higher than across the broader region, and more variable. Thus, diversity in Boran yuca overlapped with that of the broader region, but was distinct overall. These findings suggest that the Bora select specific traits in yuca to address agricultural constraints, cultural traditions, or both.

My research is focused on Ghanaians agroecological traditions, their relationship to plants as food, medicine, fibre and building material. Last year I had the opportunity to visit my fathers family in the North of Ghana for the first time. On the way I stayed with Abena at Tongo Oasis and learned about indigenous seeds, traditional foods and culture. After this I visited and documented Fra Fra, Agroecological Organic Farmers. Learning about their successes, new and continued challenges, values and wisdom. In times of great division, I believe storytelling & cultural exchanges based in earth tending can bring healing and unity. I have helped to start a Mutual aid orginzation to support Agroecological farmers in my family's village Nabala and in Karimenga Village. I'm interested in documenting the resilince of indigenous wisdom and culture in the face of climate change and continued colonization. My next trip is planned for winter 2025.