Indigenous companion planting in the great churn

Three sisters in Kalapuya ilihi

Bibliographic Data

ID4464550
AuthorsBrian Klopotek (University of Oregon, corresponding author), Talon Claybrook (University of Oregon), Joe Scott (Long Tom Watershed Council, USA)
Year2023
Volume6
Issue3
Pages1889-1904
Publication date2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/25148486221126618
OpenAlexW4296711790
LanguageEN
References cited22

This article addresses place, culture, community, and mobility in relation to Indigenous food sovereignty and TEK (traditional ecological knowledge). We start with a reflection on what it means to live in the Pacific Northwest of the United States for people from tribes that use Three Sisters agriculture. Two of the authors grew corn, beans, and squash using wintertime, indoor hydroponics and other methods in a performance art mode in Kalapuya ilihi (Western Oregon, USA). Growing these sacred companion plants out of soil, out of sun, out of season, and out of place served as a meditation on our own senses of dislocation and disjuncture as well as modes of connection as Southeastern Natives living in the Pacific Northwest. The politics and practice of growing and/or tending traditional Indigenous food plants in both traditional and non-traditional ways and places provided new language for understanding Indigenous cultural and social health in relation to Indigenous traditions, mobility, and relationality. The three authors (two from Southeastern tribes, one from a Northwestern tribe) provide a model for collaborative intercultural Indigenous ecological projects as a mode of learning, a mode of relational Indigenous mobility, a mode of community-building, and a mode of engaging in Indigenous food sovereignty. Working on community and educational projects together helped us understand companion planting as an analogy, an aesthetic, a method, and a mode for building relational futures

Agriculture · Archaeology · Food security · Food sovereignty · Geography · Indigenous · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Traditional knowledge · Tribe · Anthropology · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Urban Agriculture and Sustainability · Ecology

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