Tabitha Robin

Food has a major influence on individual and group identities. Given its impact, what does food mean for those who do not feel as though they belong to any given established group? How do people deconstruct choices in what, how, where, and when they cook and eat, and why? To explore these questions, this thesis project undertook an auto-ethnographic and arts-based approach to understand the lived experiences in relation to the foodways of adoptees in the Chinese Canadian Adoptees (CCA) community and to provide opportunities in community building and healing. In our conversations, the adoptees outline various relationships members of the community have with food; including familial memories, social bonds with friends and family, cultural (dis)connection, and social belonging. A few of the adoptees came to this project with a very low interest in food, meaning they did not consider themselves good cooks or foodies. However, all of them were able to attribute various aspects of their foodways to their cultural identity and feelings on belonging in Canada, which then was illustrated as drawings I call, “food entities.” Overall, the project revealed ways food, in all of its forms, can be both a weapon towards the alienation of Chinese Canadian Adoptees (CCAs) and simultaneously a healer and catalyst for feelings of belonging.

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This project aimed to explore the challenges Indigenous land stewards in British Columbia (BC) experience when exercising their rights to care for the land and what keeps them motivated and dedicated to their roles in the face of violence and discrimination. This project employed an Indigenous research paradigm for non-Indigenous researchers using a conversational interview method with 12 land stewards across BC, recruited using purposive sampling. The interview data was thematically analyzed to identify emergent themes surrounding care for the land. This project identified four major challenges Indigenous land stewards face in their work and six motivations that keep them dedicated to their roles. The main challenges participants discussed were 1) Colonialism; 2) Cultural Isolation; 3) Environmental Harm; and 4) Burnout and Emotional Hardship. The six key motivations for land stewards were 1) Maintaining Good Relations with the Land; 2) Learning, Sharing, Healing; 3) Spirituality and Ceremony; 4) Love and Care; 5) Indigenous Food Sovereignty; and 6) Resistance Against Colonial Structures. Participants expressed that while their motivations to care for the land are strong, the challenges they face must be addressed by colonial institutions in order to affirm Indigenous land rights, food sovereignty, and support the overall health of the land. This project served as a framework for future Canada-wide studies with Indigenous land stewards and aided in articulating a research protocol for further work exploring Indigenous conceptions of care for the land and how care supports the conservation of the environment and its food systems.

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