Nano White Food and the Reproduction of Whiteness

Abstract

Since colonisation began in Australia, it has transformed the ecological, social, cultural, and economic bases of the biggest estate on earth, with outcomes driving the disruption of Indigenous food sovereignty, foodways and food knowledges alongside the reproduction of Whiteness. This article critically examines the place of White food, including the case of nanotechnologies, in the expansion of the settler colonial frontier, and its impacts for Indigenous health and relationships with food. To do this, we consider a widely commercialised nano-food application: the addition of nano-scale titanium dioxide to make foods White. Nano White food provides a unique lens to examine White authority and control across settler colonial food systems. We consider some of the impacts arising from this global colonial power matrix—to which Whiteness is organising principle for domination—for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, justice, and rights. We argue that unsettling Whiteness is vital to redressing the violence wrought by settler colonial agri-food systems, and for re-centring living ecologies and interconnected systems across foodways.