Dissertations and Theses
Date of Degree
6-2-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Public Health (DPH)
Department
Community Health and Social Sciences
Advisor(s)
Betty Wolder Levin
Emma Tsui
Committee Members
Betty Wolder Levin
Emma Tsui
Barbara Katz Rothman
Subject Categories
Food Studies | Gender and Sexuality | Indigenous Studies | Medicine and Health | Public Health | Social Justice | Theory, Knowledge and Science
Keywords
Indigenous food sovereignty, Native American traditional food, rematriation, networked sovereignty, Indigenous social movements, decolonizing food systems, Indigenous women’s leadership, Indian health disparities, Indigenous food regimes, Indigenous feminist methodology, food systems change, survivance
Abstract
North American Indigenous communities face a public health crisis rooted in centuries of food system destruction, institutional racism and colonial oppression. Across the continent, Traditional Food Projects (TFPs) emerged in response to these existential threats, in an effort to improve community health and to reclaim seeds, land, foodways, and sovereignty. This multi-sited ethnographic study investigated whether these initiatives collectively constitute a social movement, and if so, what kind. Drawing on grounded theory and Indigenous, feminist, and social movement methodologies, the research combined in-depth interviews with seventeen key informants and cultural text analysis of the work of over one hundred and fifty TFP participants across two decades.
The study finds that TFPs do collectively constitute a robust social movement: the Native American Traditional Food Movement dedicated to pursuing health, Indigenous identity, and sovereignty, using traditional food as a catalyst for change. Indigenous women occupy central leadership throughout the movement, functioning as hearth keepers rebuilding the material capacity for home. They are the knowledge keepers of place-based food systems, cultural decision-makers, community leaders, and relationship-tenders creating home across physical, cultural, ecological, and political dimensions. The movement connects to global Indigenous Rights, transnational women’s, environmental justice, and food sovereignty movements through decentralized networks that honor tribal autonomy while enabling collective action at scale.
The research developed three theoretical tools: (1) an Indigenous Food Systems Change Model that captures simultaneous, multidirectional change across decolonization, healing, transformation, mobilization, food system change, and sovereignty; (2) an Indigenous Food Regimes Framework for analyzing the political economy of Indigenous Food Systems across time; and (3) the concept of Networked Sovereignty to describe how movements coordinate across diverse, sovereign Indigenous communities without centralized control.
The concept of Rematriation emerged from the research as an important alternative or additive to decolonization. Rematriation emphasizes the restoration of feminine principles, matrilineal authority, and relationships with Mother Earth rather than opposition to colonial structures. Across all findings, home emerged as an integrative analytical category through which traditional food work coheres: home is the material and symbolic location that colonization destroyed and the movement is actively rebuilding. This dissertation also identifies home as a category deserving systematic scholarly attention in public health, sociology, women’s studies, Indigenous Studies, and food studies.
Recommended Citation
StPierre, Stephanie S., "Four Directions Home: Decolonization, Mobilization, Healing and Transformation -- An Exploratory Study of Traditional Food Projects in North American Indigenous Communities" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/sph_etds/131
Included in
Food Studies Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Medicine and Health Commons, Public Health Commons, Social Justice Commons, Theory, Knowledge and Science Commons
