Settler colonialism is hungry: Nicole Marie Koenigsknecht, Nurturing Resistance: Food Sovereignty in Jonny Appleseed and The Seed Keeper, MA dissertation, Wien University, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism is hungry: Nicole Marie Koenigsknecht, Nurturing Resistance: Food Sovereignty in Jonny Appleseed and The Seed Keeper, MA dissertation, Wien University, 2024

29Jun24

Abstract: “Nurturing Resistance: Food Sovereignty in Jonny Appleseed and The Seed Keeper” investigates how Indigenous literary characters engage in subsistence practices—growing, preparing, and consuming food—as a means of resisting the resource extraction, industrial agriculture, and ecological degradation perpetrated by settler-colonial powers on traditional First Nations and Métis territories in present-day Manitoba and Minnesota. This master’s thesis reads works of fiction by authors Diane Wilson (Dakhóta) and Joshua Whitehead (Two-Spirit Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation) as “case studies” that contribute to a better understanding of the real-life struggles Indigenous people face to reclaim their ancestral lands and lifeways. North American settler society’s aggressive consumption of land, resources, and even Indigenous bodies looms large in both novels. In Wilson’s and Whitehead’s texts, Indigenous characters undermine these exploitative Euro-American power structures and challenge cultural hegemony by exerting bodily autonomy, nurturing familial relationships, and cultivating (traditional) foods. Multiple generations of Dakhóta women in The Seed Keeper (2021) struggle against the cultural and environmental destruction inflicted upon their traditional territory by Euro-American settlers. Ripped from her family by the predatory policies of the U.S. foster care system, Wilson’s protagonist Rosalie eventually finds her way back to her roots through the seeds and plants of her Dakhóta homeland. In Jonny Appleseed (2018) Whitehead’s protagonist similarly connects to his ancestors and sustains friendships through sharing meals. This literary analysis explores characters’ fraught relationships with highly processed foods which simultaneously bring them and their relatives closer together while also contributing to high rates of diet-related diseases within their communities. Despite the pervading food insecurity he experiences in Peguis First Nation and in Winnipeg, Jonny and his family manage to renegotiate and resurge their culture’s traditional foodways to meet their contemporary needs. In both novels the struggle for food sovereignty reaches far beyond physical survival. For Indigenous characters, cultural survival is inextricably rooted in food sovereignty.

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