‘They took our beads, it was a fair trade, get over it’: Settler colonial logics, racial hierarchies and material dominance in Canadian agriculture

Urban agriculture, racial capitalism, and resistance in the settler‐colonial city

“…As White people begin to dominate agricultural spaces in older communities of color, the actual practice of UA can result in territorial appropriation. Discussing a White-led garden project in Seattle, Ramírez (2015) notes a similar blindness to power asymmetries, as do Rosan and Pearsall (2017) in their study of UA in Philadelphia, exemplifying the "disavowal of the processes of dispossession" (Snelgrove, Dhamoon, & Corntassel, 2014, p. 5) fundamental to the racial formation of White settlers (Rotz, 2017). Indeed, UA efforts by White people are often perceived as colonial by those they intend to "help."…”

“…Similarly, Owens and Antiporda (2017, p. 165) describe how garden project failed in its efforts to fulfill a promise to construct "a garden on every corner" in historically Black West Oakland precisely because it "replicated the colonial 'ideology' of 'improvement' and risked appearing obtuse to the reality of displacement in the context of extreme gentrification." Discussing a White-led garden project in Seattle, Ramírez (2015) notes a similar blindness to power asymmetries, as do Rosan and Pearsall (2017) in their study of UA in Philadelphia, exemplifying the "disavowal of the processes of dispossession" (Snelgrove, Dhamoon, & Corntassel, 2014, p. 5) fundamental to the racial formation of White settlers (Rotz, 2017). But even while many White urban farmers are actually sensitive to uneven power dynamics, their efforts often overshadow the existing UA efforts of non-White community residents.…”

“…But the formation of the ideal neoliberal "foodie" also mobilizes a highly normative set of imaginaries and claims, many of which undergird racial-capitalist and settler logics of Othering. Many UA efforts draw on an agrarian romanticization of "going back to the land" and "getting your hands dirty," while remaining blind to racialized and gendered histories of agricultural exploitation (Carlisle, 2014;Guthman, 2008aGuthman, , 2008bRotz, 2017) and eliding questions of whose land they are actually "going back to." These studies have also revealed how UA can reinforce hegemonic racial hierarchies, where well-meaning UA advocates intent on "bringing good food to others" (Guthman, 2008a) can re-inscribe paternalistic power asymmetries and colonial patterns of oppression of people of color (Lyson, 2014;Ramírez, 2015;Reynolds & Cohen, 2016;Rosan & Pearsall, 2017).…”

The Canadian Dream: Multicultural Agrarian Narratives in Ontario

“…While Canada and the United States exist on the same continent and their local food communities have transnational connections, it would be false to assume that Canadian farm imaginaries would work in the same way. There is a growing body of research that focuses on Canada's agricultural imaginaries and how Canada actively excludes Indigenous peoples and migrant farmers or workers (Rotz 2017;Wakefield et al 2015) and the way that racialized boundaries exist in specific local food spaces such as Vancouver and Toronto (Gibb and Wittman 2013;Campigotto 2010). These researchers show that whiteness does play a role in agriculture north of the border but that it works differently because of Canada's divergent context, colonial history, and politics of multiculturalism vis-à-vis the United States.…”

Grasses tame and wild: Imperial entanglements in settler colonial cereal breeding and botany

“…These landscapes, as Susan Gray (2015: 60) notes in a similar American context, are ‘not only associated with dwelling and permanence, but with a particular kind of commercial, agrarian landscape, one in which cultivated fields, farms, and towns have replaced the forest primeval’. In post-confederation Canada, settler dominance was maintained through the material and ideological strategies of governmental support for white settlers (Rotz, 2017). The Canadian government's use of scientific agriculture demonstrates the importance of state-sanctioned science in tipping the scales in favour of settler communities.…”