Politics of food

I so much agree with all of the above. Thank you all for your intelligent and, to me, very exciting thoughts.

I think when we get to the stage of speaking/writing-acting as a collective, leading with a well-considered decolonisation, anti-racism, Land Back and class-social-justice grounding would situate us in a unique place from any ‘politically neutral’ (*snort*) cohorts that Aaron refers to above. Cohorts which we all have lots in common with, appreciate elements of, possibly even work with/in…but what I hunger for (to use a food metaphor) is the decolonisation/class acknowledgment and lens.

(I know there are many incredible Māori food sovereignty organisations/groups … but as well as these, are there other groups, (food sovereignty/resilience specific) where pākehā are speaking up and out in support of tino rangitiratanga and mana motuhake? (I hope there are! Please tell me.) One option is could be to join a Māori-led organisation … if there are ones who want pākehā allies on board. & I also totally respect that this may not be welcomed…and for manifold good reasons.)

If there are not, as Aaron proposes above, these factors could perhaps be our point of difference/focus.

Yes, I love compost, organic kai, and soil regeneration …AND I also would like to see land returned to Māori …and to prioritise getting everyone in NZ fed…before there’s too much quibbling about whether the food that mitigates the ongoing food insecurity issue is 100% organic. (This is where I see class issues coming in most strongly.)

I also like Dan’s comments about many approaches, attempts, and solutions to big and gnarly problems. Down with fundamentalism and exclusivity, aye?

ngā mihi🌻

Can i just add here that i am absolutely in love with this thread!!! :-) The key is to take that inspiration from the Zapatistas, Rojava, Co-operation Jackson, La Via Campesina and other inspiring movements across the world without falling into the trap of just following some overseas trend (or template) and assuming we can just easily replicate it here, without considering Aotearoa's history, Te Tiriti and the colonial realities here. In our early 20s activism, we would just copy-cat anything cool we saw online - and because the english-speaking activism was so dominant online in the early to mid 2000s, that's all we saw.

It is more clear to me now that the concept of 'many yeses' has certain essential ingredients - like trees, like community, like principles around justice, liberation, peace - but also has many dimensions that are yet to be fully worked out, and some that may well be contested. I see our role as activators now more around creating models and systems that can become springboards, or indeed avalanches for irresistible change. That's how i see Papatūanuku Kōkiri Marae - as a beacon of hope for collective liberation that has so much to offer to world.

i've been looking to the syntropic agroforestry movement in Kanaky (aka New Caledonia) and the really cool stuff they are doing. Kanaky having many similarities with Aotearoa in terms of history and anti-colonial resistance etc. What i'm missing there is a clear statement around a desire for combining their regenerative agricultural practices with the need to end the colonial realities of that island.

The political dimension in Kanaky - through the referenda, through the electoral process - shows that Bookchin's Libertarian Municipalism definitely has its limitations and that while i agree it's worthwhile to engage in these processes (i ran for the regional council myself this year), it is only one of the many spheres that we need to be active in. Therefore our communalism (as in class-based community organising) needs to be based within a framework of decolonisation to stop re-producing relationships based on dispossession - so maybe the three crucial ingredients moving forward are trees, community and matike mai :-)

100% with you here @Urs Signer, it's great to take inspiration from the theory and practical examples where movements have been built or tangible gains made in the rest of the world, but we need to exist within and embrace our context and not think we can cut and paste or deify those movements. To not be parochial whilst also acknowledging our unique history and potential futures.

Keen to hear more about the Kanaky resistance efforts and how it is or might be combined with syntropy.. maybe a good one for tomorrow's call :)