Promoting or protecting traditional knowledges? Tensions in the resurgence of indigenous food practices on Vancouver Island

Abstract

Indigenous knowledges are increasingly promoted within scholarship and policy making as a necessary component of the well-being and self-determination among Indigenous Peoples. This article contributes to this discussion by raising practical and ethical questions surrounding the resurgence of traditional food practices in Western Canada. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with cultural activists and Elders in central Vancouver Island, this article reveals how this resurgence is framed by competing and contradictory pressures to build wider inclusion and awareness while simultaneously protecting knowledge and resources from exploitation. Due to this complication, it is imperative that scholars and policy makers develop and apply a more nuanced understanding of Indigenous knowledges in contemporary contexts that can better respond to the needs of Indigenous communities.