What I Am Thinking About Now: Professor Elizabeth Hoover (American Studies)

Historically, horticulture served as the main source of food, a framework for the ceremonial cycle and ultimately the base of political power and strength among indigenous peoples like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in present day New York. Today many of these communities exist on vastly reduced land holdings, and produce very little of their own food. But a movement to reclaim the cultivation of food is coalescing in many Native communities seeking to improve health statistics and reclaim a horticultural heritage.  Based on historical research, several years of fieldwork conducted in a Mohawk community, and participation in several indigenous food sovereignty conferences, this presentation explores contemporary American Indian food sovereignty projects that are based on efforts that look to the past (reconnecting with ceremonial cycles and speaking back to three centuries of colonization efforts), the present (combatting the current generation’s “Walmart mentality” about food), and the future (forward thinking concerns about a system destined to collapse). 

What I Am Thinking About Now is an on-going informal workshop/seminar series to which faculty and graduate students are invited to present and discuss recently published work and work in progress.