Toward foodsheds: reimagining food systems in the Lake Superior watershed

Abstract

The Lake Superior watershed is nested within multiple Indigenous territories, two settler-colonial nation-states, and a globalized capitalist economic system. While water flows freely, the pursuit of social and ecological transformation is constrained by the physical and psychological enforcement of human-constructed boundaries. Despite these realities, watersheds are sites of great potential. Grounded in specific places while water flows through to others, watersheds enable multiple streams toward justice and entry points into food systems transformations. Foodsheds, named after watersheds, are overlapping webs of food relationships. They offer alternatives to the place-less and relation-less imaginaries of industrial food systems by grounding food communities in the places and relationships they nourish. [...]