Contemporary programs in support of traditional ways: Inuit perspectives on community freezers as a mechanism to alleviate pressures of wild food access in Nain, Nunatsiavut
Introduction
Food insecurity is not a new problem; people have coped with food shortages throughout history. However, people are becoming increasingly aware of the role that socio-cultural, environmental and economic factors play in food access and availability (Maxwell, 1996, Riches, 1999, Tarasuk, 2001). In fact, access to food, recognized as a fundamental human right (UN (United Nations), 2012), is an escalating concern at the local, regional, national, and international scale (Rosegrant and Cline, 2003, FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization), 2011, WHO (World Health Organization), 2011). In addition to being recognized as a right, food and its surrounding discourse has evolved to account for its inherently political nature by acknowledging the right of individuals and communities to define their own food system including production, distribution and consumption; this is known as food sovereignty (Council of Canadian Academies, 2014).
In Canada’s arctic region, colonialism and rapid nonpoint source anthropogenic impacts on the climate and local environment have affected both the availability and accessibility of market and wild1 foods that characterize the contemporary Inuit diet (Guyot et al., 2006, Ford, 2009, Ford and Berrang-Ford, 2009, Beaumier and Ford, 2010, Wesche and Chan, 2010). Specifically, impacts of both colonialism and climate change have stressed the cultural and social structures of many Inuit communities; the fall-out has included both food insecurity and diminished abilities to be food sovereign across communities in the Arctic (Council of Canadian Academies, 2014). Wild food access, gathering, and consumption are fundamental to the Inuit diet not only for physical health, but also for their direct links to Inuit social, mental, and spiritual health, the maintenance of kinship relationships, and identity (Collings et al., 1998, Searles, 2002, Bennett and Rowley, 2004).
While the aforementioned rapidly changing conditions – both colonial and climactic – are having immediate and long-term implications for wild food accessibility and health for Inuit (Furgal and Seguin, 2006; Laidler et al., 2009), Inuit have maintained a high level of social-ecological resilience that has fostered long-term sustainable resource acquisition and coping strategies (Berkes and Jolly, 2001, Bates, 2007, Wenzel, 2009). Several community level initiatives have been established in response to growing stresses on access to wild foods; one such initiative is the concept of a “community freezer” (Chan et al., 2006, Furgal and Seguin, 2006). The community freezer is one way for communities to negotiate their food sovereignty in a context where their food system has become largely imposed vis-à-vis a colonially-enforced transition from semi-nomadic subsistence to one of permanent settlements that rely largely on wage-based economic transactions and store-bought foods (Council of Canadian Academies, 2014).
Community freezers are typically initiatives (i.e. singular projects) or programs (i.e. part of a series of interconnected activities) established through local, regional, or federal governance structures to support wild food consumption. Resident harvesters supply wild foods to the freezer so that others in the community are able to access these foods through various distribution practices (Boult, 2004). There is growing popularity in the use of such freezers due, in part, to increased awareness and better management (George, 2011, Government of Nunavut, 2011, Windeyer, 2011); however program evaluation is relatively absent from food security peer-reviewed literature. In response to this void, we conducted an exploratory qualitative case study to examine the value of a community freezer initiative from multiple perspectives in one Inuit community. The fundamental goal of this research was to explore how a community freezer in one Inuit community in northern Canada influenced contemporary wild food access in the context of Indigenous food security (and, more broadly, food sovereignty) in the Arctic.
What follows is a brief discussion of Inuit specific issues of food security in northern Canada, and how community freezers have been considered elsewhere in terms of contributing to a food-secure environment. From there, a description of the research methods and case-specific findings are provided. The paper concludes with a discussion of how our findings can contribute to a scholarly and applied understanding of community freezers as mechanisms for contributing to food security, alleviating social-environmental-economic pressures on access to wild foods and the implications for further research and policy.
Section snippets
Food security in the Arctic
Food security is widely understood to be “when all people at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization), 2009, p, 8). It also includes the confidence of knowing that foods will be there when needed, and that they can be acquired in ways that are socially and culturally appropriate (Maxwell and Smith, 1992, Maxwell, 1996
Contextual overview
The focus of this study is in Nunatsiavut, the Inuit land claim region of Newfoundland and Labrador, situated in the Canadian Subarctic (see Fig. 1: Map of Study Location). Inuit in this region primarily lived nomadic lifestyles until the late 1700s when Moravian missionaries influenced Inuit settlement close to or within mission stations. A forced closure of two mission stations by the provincial government in the 1950s resulted in a re-distribution of Inuit to three of the five coastal
Research approach
A community-based participatory case study approach (Castleden et al., 2008) was undertaken to capture local perspectives from those who are the most familiar with their foodshed3, are the subject of much inquiry, and yet have not been included in many of the recent conversations (i.e. post 1950s) and decisions regarding food that ultimately affect their livelihoods (Wenzel, 1991
Findings
Our analysis resulted in the identification of economic, socio-cultural and environmental factors that both facilitate access and create barriers of access with respect to wild food through Nain’s community freezer. For this study, economic facilitators and stresses on access to foods refer to time and financial constraints; socio-cultural refer to human behaviours and attitudes; and environmental facilitators and stresses refer to shifts in the climate and the physical landscape. While there
Discussion
Unlike other food support programs, such as food banks where supply is heavily influenced by top-down external factors (Riches, 2002), the community freezer is a bottom-up community-based system. Our study found that environmental conditions were a primary concern for managers and users for future access to wild foods. Moreover, extreme weather events, attributed to the changing climate, have challenged skilled harvesters in other Inuit regions in terms of their ability to access and share
Implications
This research offers important perspectives on the value and importance of food support initiatives in the context of rapidly changing socio-cultural, economic and environmental conditions such as that of a contemporary Inuit community. Further, it provides perspectives on future community freezer management and use that may otherwise be overlooked in the implementation of these programs. One of the more important contributions of this research is the emphasis for programs to critically
Conclusion
This research responds to a gap in northern and Inuit food security research, and by extension, food sovereignty debates, pertaining to support initiatives such as community freezers. Although the Nain community freezer helped bridge access to wild foods, this study identified many barriers to wild food access that pose negative long-term implications on individual and community food security. There are also perhaps less obvious influences or considerations for future management and freezer use
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