Agroecological transition or agroecological repossession ? Resurgence of traditional food culture in the Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú

Bibliographic Data

ID2956708
AuthorsLauriane Tremembé (Indigenous Territory of the Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú, Brazil), Mateus Tremembé (0009-0001-6402-5050, Indigenous Territory of the Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú, Brazil), Evan Bowne (0000-0001-6038-960X, Western University, Canada, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume21
Issue3
Pages510-521
Publication date2025-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAlterNative An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1177-1801 • E-ISSN: 1174-1740
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/11771801251369560
PMID41938071
OpenAlexW4413876430
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited19

Industrial food systems, as extensions of colonial dispossession, are destroying the planet. Agroecology is increasingly promoted as a response, framed as an ecological farming practice, a grassroots movement, and an academic field. Yet, much agroecological knowledge remains embedded in the same Western institutions and epistemologies that underpin industrial agriculture. As such, agroecological science can reproduce patterns of knowledge extraction and exploitation. Drawing on environmental repossession , which describes how Indigenous communities restore relationships with land, and a framework for ethical engagement between Indigenous and Western sciences, we reframe agroecological transitions as agroecological repossessions. This reframing centers the resurgence of traditional foodways and resituates innovations in ecological agriculture within the continuity of ancestral land relations. Through an example from the Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú (an Indigenous community in Ceará, Brazil), we show how reframing agroecological transitions this way opens the possibility of reclaiming agroecological science itself

Agriculture · Agroecology · Agroforestry · Archaeology · Geography · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Environmental Science · Organic Food and Agriculture · Rural Development and Agriculture

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Open DOIOpen Access