The nature of food: indigenous Dene foodways and ontologies in the era of climate change

Authors

• David Walsh Arizona State University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67455

Keywords:

Indigenous peoples -- Canada, Dene Indians, Indians of North America, Climatic changes, Global warming, Hunting and gathering societies, Arctic regions, Food, Eating and meals, Diet, Cooking, Food habits, Nutrition

Abstract

Climate change leading to a drastic decline in caribou populations has prompted strict hunting regulations in Canada’s Northwest Territories since 2010. The Dene, a subarctic indigenous people, have responded by turning to tradition and calling for more respectful hunting to demonstrate respectful reciprocity to the caribou, including a community-driven foodways project on caribou conservation and Dene caribou conservation which I co-facilitated in 2011. In these ways the caribou is approached as a person. Dene responses to caribou decline can best be understood by ontological theories of an expanded notion of indigenous personhood. However, I argue these theories are inadequate without an attention to foodways, specifically the getting, sharing, and returning of food to the land. The necessity of sustenance reveals a complicated relationship of give-and-take between humans and caribou, negotiated by tradition, yet complicated by the contemporary crisis.