Building Community around Food in Urban Spaces: Considering Connecting and (Re)connecting to Indigenous Foods in the...

Today, well over half of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) People in the United States live in cities, a growing trend since the mid-20th century. Indigenous food sovereignty is a concept and process rooted in Indigenous self-determination of food, health, and nutrition.

Although often considered in the context of rural or reservation-based AI/AN communities, there is burgeoning consideration of Indigenous food sovereignty and its unique manifestation in cities. In this paper, we ask: How are AI/AN People making and building community around food in urban spaces? How does this contribute to our understanding of Indigenous food sovereignty in process and definition?

Our study is informed by lived experience and/or planning discussions of authors from 2 urban spaces in the United States: Anchorage, Alaska, and Baltimore, Maryland. Authors include Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and community leaders engaged in community-based participatory research. Most authors have personal experience living in Anchorage or Baltimore.

We found unique or amplified challenges, such as high cost of living, poor access to land, smaller or different community and family networks, more challenging access to traditional foods, and centering AI/AN community ethics and values in urban policies. However, AI/AN innovation counters urban challenges to Indigenous food sovereignty, and community is a keystone component of these innovations.

We conclude with recommendations for future research, outlining important and impactful work to be done to support urban Indigenous food sovereignty. This includes quantitative and mixed-methods studies, social networks analysis, and consideration for environmental health related to traditional foods and Indigenous land stewardship in cities.