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In Native Foods: Agriculture, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonialism in American History, Michael D. Wise confronts four common myths about Indigenous food history: that most Native communities did not practice agriculture; that Native people were primarily hunters; that Native people were usually hungry; and that Native people never developed taste or cuisine. Wise argues that colonial expectations of food and agriculture have long structured ways of seeing (and of not seeing) Native land and labor.

Combining original historical research with interdisciplinary perspectives and informed by the work of Indigenous food sovereignty advocates and activists, this study sheds new light on the historical roles of Native American cuisine in American history and the significance of ongoing colonial processes in present-day discussions about the place of Native foods and Native history in our evolving worlds of taste, justice, and politics.
 

A tight ethnographic focus on the popularity and impact of overly processed plant-based foods and supplements in the Philippines.

Through meticulous research and insightful analysis, Packaged Plants explores the intersectionality between health, economics, and environment in the Philippines, offering an absorbing ethnography and cultural history of how the production and consumption of plants for food and medicine have changed as well as how ultra-processed foods have become linked to health concerns, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity.
 
Part one of the book presents a comprehensive analysis scrutinizing the colonial influences, urbanization, nutritional policies, research programs, and neoliberal marketing strategies in the Philippines that have proliferated packaged plant-based products as food and medicines. Part two interweaves contemporary urban political ecology frameworks with medical anthropological perspectives within Puerto Princesa and elucidates the precarious circumstances compelling individuals to invest in supplements.

This critical text is a timely ethnography of how global powers, local resistance, and capital flows are shaping contemporary African foodways. Ghana was one of the first countries targeted by a group of US donors and agribusiness corporations that funded an ambitious plan to develop genetically modified (GM) crops for African farmers. The collective believed that GM crops would help farmers increase their yields and help spark a “new” Green Revolution on the continent. Soon after the project began in Ghana, a nationwide food sovereignty movement emerged in opposition to GM crops. Today, in spite of impressive efforts and investments by proponents, only two GM crops remain in the pipeline. Why, after years of preparation, millions of dollars of funding, and multiple policy reforms, did these megaprojects effectively come to a halt? One of the first ethnographies to take on the question of GM crops in the African context, We Are Not Starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana blends archival analysis, interviews, and participant observation with Ghanaian scientists, farmers, activists, and officials. Ultimately the text aims to illuminate why GM crops have animated the country and to highlight how their introduction has opened an opportunity to air grievances about the systematic de-valuing and exploitation of African land, labor, and knowledge that have been centuries in the making.