d sovereignty looks at how we create autonomy and self-determination against that colonial landscape, that extractive landscape, that we’ve dealt with here on Turtle Island for almost half a millennium. Abolition in farming is rooted in creating spaces where people can choose to heal themselves, where people can choose to empower themselves… It’s a philosophy and practice that we need to embody versus an end road.”
Part of what motivates Johnathan is his personal experience – though he recognizes that this is part of a much greater collective struggle – of “the trauma of trying to farm under capitalism and imperialism and how much we internalize that and how much we actually then put that back out to the universe.” Abolitionist farming, he explains, is challenging that, “challenging the concept that settler colonial practices, whether in Palestine or on Turtle Island, are the foundation that we need to work back from and (acknowledging that) all land is stolen.” It eschews approaches based on reform, focusing instead on getting to the roots of the problems plaguing society. Of course, pushing for transformation within the existing system is rife with contradictions, but Johnathan considers grappling with these to be part of the work. He cites as an example the necessity of working with his local department of probation, with all of its problems and contradictions, in order to create transformative experiences for formerly incarcerated youth. The bottom line, as he sees it, is “What does it mean to hold up our community, our people, our comrades? How do you be an abolitionist in spaces where abolition is not welcome?”
The creation of spaces of empowerment and healing under otherwise hostile conditions is a theme that also arose in the research of Maggie and Laila, who recounted their moving visit with a small organic farmer in Gaza, who had created a safe haven on tiny terrain, surrounded by utter devastation, making it “a place of richness and beauty and joy and wealth.” “We saw that same spirit repeated in almost every single household we set foot in, over and over again,” reflected Maggie. Maggie also emphasized that, particularly in the case of kitchens, it is women who are fostering these spaces of resistance in the realm of everyday life, pointing to essential linkages between food sovereignty and feminism:
“If we understand the world from the lens of extractivism and the bodies and lands and lives that it devours, that helps us understand and put in common a lot of these colonized experiences… Feminism – and the feminist economy – kind of turn that logic on its head, asking ‘What would the world look like – how would we organize things – if we put life and the perpetuation of life… at the center?’ And I think food sovereignty is very much about that.”
As the conversation drew to an end, each of the participants reflected on how much resonance they had felt with each other’s stories and insights, pointing to powerful intersections of struggles. They also reflected on lingering questions, such as what does food sovereignty, a concept often linked inextricably with place, mean for people in diaspora, like each of them? To this question, Maggie recalled what Jonathan had shared about abolition being not a destination, but a practice and a methodology to embody. Applying this philosophy to food sovereignty opens up new possibilities for how we think about it – and most critically, how we put it into practice – in each of our respective contexts.
For resources on food sovereignty accompanying the webinar, see here.