2023 Horticulture Training Keynote
Thursday, November 16, 2023
12:00 p.m.–1:30 p.m.
Online via Zoom
Cost: Free
History, Health Disparities, and Action: A Wabanaki Perspective on Foodways in So Called Maine
Assistant Professor of Native American Studies and Food Systems
University of Maine
What motivates us to act and create positive relationships to land, water, and food? No matter our role, there are motivations behind our work harvesting and processing food, whether they are maintaining family food traditions or responding to systemic inequities in our communities, or both. Speaking from an indigenous perspective, these motivations come from a history where both our food traditions and our food systems were actively targeted by colonial and state policies, which shapes all the ways indigenous food growers and fishers are responding to today. I approach this topic by providing the history shaping the motivations behind Wabanaki food sovereignty and provide examples of how people are responding to and healing those systems in the present. Lastly, I conclude with resources for people to learn more about Wabanaki foodways and ways they can connect these ideas within non-indigenous contexts.
This presentation is online only. Please register to receive an email confirmation with the Zoom link. This presentation will be recorded and, registrants will receive an emailed link to the recording approximately one week after the event.
Speaker Bio
Anthony Sutton, Ph.D., is Passamaquoddy from Sipayik. He is an Assistant Professor of Native American Studies and Food Systems at the University of Maine and Faculty Fellow at the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. Sutton’s work focuses on historical and contemporary aspects of Wabanaki foodways, both unpacking the histories that have shaped lands, waters, and species central to Wabanaki foodways, to the present by centering Wabanaki visions for the restoration of foodways and fisheries.
For more information or a reasonable accommodation, please contact Becky Gray at 207.324.2814 or rebecca.gray@maine.edu, by November 2, 2023. If requests are received after this date, we may not have sufficient time to make necessary arrangements.
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