The seeds are coming home: a rising movement for Indigenous seed rematriation in the United States

Emma Herrighty () and Christina Gish Hill ()
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Emma Herrighty: Cornell University
Christina Gish Hill: Iowa State University

Agriculture and Human Values, 2024, vol. 41, issue 3, No 7, 1007-1018

Abstract: Abstract Seed rematriation is a rising movement within greater efforts to improve seed and food sovereignty for Native American communities in the United States. As a feminized reframing of repatriation, rematriation seeks to heal Indigenous relationships with food, seeds, and landscapes. Since first contact, Native agricultural practices have been systematically targeted by colonization, resulting in the diminished biodiversity of cultural gardening systems. Of this vast wealth, many varieties exist today solely under the stewardship of non-Native institutions. Seed rematriation is therefore the process and movement by which Native nations reclaim their cultural seed heritages. Once seeds are returned to the hands and soils of their home communities, Indigenous Nations can reestablish healthy, diverse, and sustainable seed and foodways for generations to come. This article explores the history of the term rematriation within Indigenous sovereignty scholarship as well as its evolving interpretations and applications. Considering how the seed rematriation movement has been shaped by several seed keepers in the Midwest reveals the cultural understandings and significances that underpin this work across many aspects of Indigenous lifeways. The resulting discussion from ethnographic material demonstrates why seed reclamation and seed sovereignty movements in the Midwest uphold Native nationhood through both resurgence and refusal. The Indigenous processes of recognizing and reclaiming seeds work beyond recovering agricultural knowledge to also mend severed kin relationships, rejuvenate cultural knowledge, and reestablish authority over Indigenous food systems.

Keywords: Seed sovereignty; Native American Agriculture; Ethnography; Heirloom seeds; Indigenous knowledge; Biodiversity conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s10460-023-10532-5

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