Enacting food sovereignty in Aotearoa New Zealand and Peru: revitalizing Indigenous knowledge, food practices and ecological philosophies

Abstract

This article reports on a cross-cultural study of two Indigenous1 knowledge and food security systems: Quechua2 people of Peru and Māori3 of Aotearoa – New Zealand, and implications for food systems sustainability and traditional knowledge. This study takes a novel approach by using a traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) lens to examine respective “good living principles” of Allin Kawsay/Buen Vivir in Peru and of Mauri Ora in Aotearoa in safeguarding food security. In this study, I introduce the “Khipu Model” as a source of knowledge production and sovereignty guiding the development of an Indigenous research-based framework. Drawing on over 45 interviews, with elders, community leaders, and people engaged in sustainable food production in Peru and Aotearoa. I show that an Indigenous “food security policy framework” underpinned by a set of cultural and environmental indicators of wellbeing resonates with conceptualizations of food sovereignty, whereas the dominant food security approaches do not. I argue that such a framework enacts practices of food sovereignty and represents a tool of Indigenous resurgence and social change in food politics for the revitalization of Indigenous food sovereignty as an alternative sustainable food system.