Organized by the Canadian Association of Food Studies (CAFS) ad hoc Committee on Palestine and the Right to Food

In this discussion, panelists will examine the relationship between food, empire and colonialism, drawing connections between the current genocide in Gaza with colonial projects across Africa and Turtle Island. Panelists will discuss how imperial and colonial regimes have and continue to use deliberate starvation and the weaponization of food and food growing lands as a means of genocidal violence.

Amid the horrific settler colonial violence happening in Gaza, we also raise crucial questions about the role of food in culture, identity and connection to land. We ask: What pathways exist across colonial contexts to revive, repair and sustain seed and food sovereignty for colonized peoples fighting for freedom, life, and liberation?

Panelists:

Justin Podur runs the Anti-Empire Project podcast and youtube channel including the Gaza War Sit Rep series and the Civilizations historical series. He is the author of Siegebreakers, a 2019 speculative novel where Palestinians win a war of liberation. He has been to Gaza and the West Bank and was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in 2002.

Yafa El Masri is both a refugee and a researcher.  She has a PhD in Human Geography and an MSc in Local Development Studies from the University of Padova, Italy. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Geography at Durham University in the UK. She is also the leader of the Decolonizing Development Research Work Group, at the EU-funded Decolonizing Development COST Action (DecolDev). She has various Academic and non-academic publications in books, journals, and digital platforms. As a Palestinian refugee herself, Yafa’s main research focus is Palestinian refugees and their waiting zones, but her broader set of research activities are centered around refugee studies, decoloniality, and critical development studies. Yafa has years of experience working in grassroots community-based organizations in addition to International Organizations such as the UNRWA.

Max Ajl is a Senior Fellow at University of Ghent and an associated researcher at the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment. He is an associate editor at Agrarian South and Journal of Labor and Society, and has written for The Journal of Peasant Studies and the Review of African Political Economy. His book, A People’s Green New Deal, was published in 2021 with Pluto Press.

Hosted Thursday May 9th 1-3pm EDT, ZOOM. Watch the recording of the panel here: