Abstract
Settler colonialism is primarily about the domination of an initially exogenous group and its use of appropriated indigenous lands for the production of food to sustain its polity. Food is thus central to the establishment, survival, and advancement of the settler colony and settler colonialism. Food, however, is also marker of identity that informs who people are to themselves and to others.
Elaborating on the historical context and key terms, the introduction problematises the relationship between settler colonialism and food and explains the theoretical underpinning of the volume. It demonstrates how the study of settler-colonial foodways and food cultures provides us with a window, for understanding not only how settler colonies are formed and evolve, but also about the evolution of relations and power dynamics within settler societies and between the settlers and the indigenous populations.
‘As settlers are non-indigenous, they are forever indigenising … The question then is how to be efficient self-indigenisers’
—Veracini (2015: 270)
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Notes
- 1.
The term indigenous has been and is mostly used to refer to the descendants of the pre-colonial peoples of several regions, including the Americas, the Arctic territories, Australia and New Zealand. The term is often used interchangeably with the terms first people, aboriginal people, native people or autochthonous people. In addition, other, often marginalised, ethnic and national groups with distinct cultures, define themselves as indigenous.
- 2.
Though the term is normally used to denote the metropolitan centre of diverse Empires, we used it here more broadly to denote the political and cultural centres of imperial power (the obvious exception here is Israel—a settler colonial state without a clear cut metropole).
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Colás, A., Monterescu, D., Ranta, R. (2022). Introduction. In: Ranta, R., Colás, A., Monterescu, D. (eds) ‘Going Native?'. Food and Identity in a Globalising World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96268-5_1
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