2019 CAFLP Annual Conference Panel Recap: “Weighing and Scaling: Cultures, Politics, and the Economic Governance of Food”

All law is political; all food law is political, and it is all personal. In this panel, Andrea Freeman and Bita Amani discussed the persistent racism and othering in consumption and access to food.

Andrea spoke to us about (the lack of) food justice in the Green New Deal. By providing examples of ongoing racism and discrimination in access to food, and specifically culturally appropriate food, she argued that for the Green New Deal to achieve its goal of universal access to food, it needs to address slavery, colonization, and land theft instead of perpetuating food oppression.

Andrea provided a quote by recording artist Wade Fernandez of Wisconsin’s Menominee tribe: “I went downtown to the commod shop / Met the blues ’cause they were out of stock. / Tell me please when I’ll get my commod cheese.”

This verse speaks to disregard of Indigenous health and continued colonial destruction of Indigenous food by governmental institutions. The food distribution program for Indian reservations in the United States was used by Andrea as an example of the government’s continued colonial violence against Indigenous peoples’ and relationships with food.

Andrea also used the example of the national school lunch program, which as it is currently implemented, contributes to food insecurity. There is stigma attached to school meals, which means children would rather go without food than endure lunch shaming.

Despite the Green New Deal’s acknowledgement of racism and food, it fails to include a call for culturally appropriate food or inclusion of consultation, which means it is not likely to meet its goals and is instead poised to reproduce food oppression.

Possibly a response to food oppression and othering is Bita’s presentation of our need to rethink the notion of the individualized self that prioritizes progress (i.e. economics), and instead place food/ourselves within a compassionate realm of care. New measures need to transcend such individualized concepts of self and law.

Bita problematizes our consumption of the “(m)other”, including DNA as chemicals, which perpetuates the individualized conception of self and law. Law is infused with notions of the autonomous self as distinct from the “other”, and there is a lack of recognition for the agency of non human others. Instead of such agency over the other, Bita suggests a reconnection with spirit and soil, and with the “womb of care”, considering how we are all food and an edible society. 

For example, Gaea and earth systems theory reconceptualize ourselves and the environment: “When we forget the earth from where we receive our food, food becomes non-sustainable” (Vandana Shiva). If we fail to reconceptualize, there is always the recognition of the mother’s reconceptualization: “We all are but human, and we all have to die / And six feet of earth will make us all of one size.” (Olla Belle Reed).