Can you see us? Reparations & ORFC Global

Talks on becoming responsible descendants and good future ancestors

Illustration for Landworkers’ Alliance Calendar 2021 by Rosanna Morris

LION at ORFC Global 2021

Several months have passed since Oxford Real Farming Conference closed. With the distance of many months it’s become difficult to summarise what our reflections were - especially as this year’s conference was so different from previous years! Due to the ongoing pandemic, the event shifted online and with that brought the advantage of connecting with people across the world, bringing together speakers from over 120 countries with over 5000 delegates. Alongside more technical talks about farm design and solutions were brilliant conversations about land rights, food sovereignty, cosmology and reparations. Speakers from the Global Majority, Indigenous, Black and Brown voices were rousing as they shared their stories and strategies for climate justice, food justice, land justice and racial justice.

And of course, LION was there! In our second year taking part, Josina Calliste and Dee Woods delivered an excellent talk “Our Branches & Roots” on building solidarity and racial justice into landworking, horticulture and nature connection in Britain. Dee opened the talk with a a grounding, drawing on West African Yoruba tradition with libations and calling upon our ancestors. She and Josina went on to discuss the roots of oppression against Black and people of colour in our food system in Britain as well as uplifting the network of Black growers and growers of colour that have “mushroomed” over the past few years.

“This is not about building back better. This is about justice, this is about healing and repair… this is about us going forward from a place of joy and love and respect for each other, the elements, the earth…”

- Dee Woods

You can watch “Our Branches & Roots” below and links to our talks at ORFC 2021 and 2022 are here.

The rest of the collective, Marcus MacDonald, Laurèl Hadleigh and Sam Siva co-facilitated a workshop for Black, Indigenous and people of colour. The workshop, “Heal & Repair: Land & Freedom” presented our working definition of reparations and how we heal as individuals as well as the land.

In our collaborative workshop we shared LION’s working definition of reparations, drawing from what we as a collective and as individuals had thought about, written, talked about and learned. We wrote our thoughts, feelings, dreams and desires about REPAIR. Using this definition we discussed what does healing and reparations mean to each of us as individuals, to LION, and to Black, Indigenous and racialised communities. We call this our “working definition” because we believe that language is dynamic and active and therefore will change.

Reparative justice is holistic. In addition to financial reparations to secure economic resilience, reparations must address ecological, mental and physical repair as essential parts of a wider whole. Reparations is about redistributing resources to Black and People of Colour, but it is also about creating the space for BPOC to heal and repair. 

Reparations is for Black and People of Colour descended from colonised peoples who experienced different forms of exploitation and extractivism. These include but are not limited to enslavement, forced labour, forced migration, resource extraction, and the legacy of these violences, all of which have transgenerational effects. This is why Reparations must be more than resource distribution.

In healing and repairing BPOC return to a harmonious rhythm with ourselves and the ecosystems we exist in. We do this by repairing our relationships with ourselves, psychologically, emotionally, culturally - creating space for joy and grief. Repairs within organisations, institutions, politics, education - creating space to honour our histories and tell our stories. Repairs to the Land, our relationship to Land, through earth stewardship and building upon traditional knowledge systems. 

Land can be a site of healing and repair for the traumas that we carry.  Through this we will achieve racial justice, food justice, ecological justice, climate justice. Reparations seek to disrupt systemic and structural violence of racism and colonialism by conceding power and resources in order to give space, both figuratively and literally, to BPOC to repair and heal.

- Working Definition of Reparations by Land In Our Names (current iteration as of April 2021)

Illustration for Rootz Into Food Growing by Javie Huxley

So what does Reparations look like in our land and food justice movements? Now that it is a term used with less fear and dismissals than even a few years ago, how is a reparative framework empowering us towards our goals? I’ve shared some talks from this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference which explores different forms of reparative justice relating to food and land justice.

Reparations at ORFC Global 2021

We Are The River: An Exploration of Indigenous Food Sovereignty and the Legal Personality of Nature in Aotearoa New Zealand

In this brilliant talk Catherine Iorns Magallanes, Erin Matariki and Tāme Iti discuss the movement towards getting the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River) legal personhood as a way to protect the river and the Iwi Māori who are the river’s kin. Catherine makes it clear that this wasn’t an environmental campaign but rather one of reparations - a form of cultural redress, recognising the intimate relationship the Tūhoe Māori have with Te Awa Tupua. The river is a living ancestor who cannot be owned. In this talk, Erin Matariki says that “we need to manage the humans” not the land. The focus being on humans, on becoming responsible descendants, not protecting the rights of nature. Tāme Iti, a lifelong acitivist, is funny and warm, chuckling about being okay with having “a lie down”. This talk was a beautiful way to see how coalition building can create real change while still centring indigenous people’s voices.

Against Philanthropy: The Role of Foundations in Colonising the Food System

Rarely are zoom events as dynamic as this talk. Rupa Marya and Raj Patel have been working together on a book called “Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice” and their ability to share and hold space for each other is palpable. In this talk they explore the neo-colonial tendencies within philanthropy, highlighting the links between Cecil Rhodes and modern day philanthropists such as Bill Gates. Connecting the Green Revolution to the fear of insurrection, Patel and Marya stress the way that the Green Revolution undermined land reform and made poor people poorer as well as contributing to climate change and health issues. Often times we forget that what often pushes philanthropic action is a desire to maintain power over, many philanthropists directly benefitting from whatever “help” they provide to poorer countries. Philanthropy in fact erases alternative ways of solving whatever problem it seeks to address. Complicating the ways in which revolutionary change can be achieved, Patel and Marya discussed the issues of accepting philanthropic funding on the short and long term. Marya also shared this brilliant diagram which illustrated the complex web of colonialism, capitalism, trauma and exploitation which you can have a look at below.

Image belongs to Rupa Marya

Indigenous Farming & Land Stewardship on Turtle Island

One of the amazing things about ORFC 2021 was the capacity to bring together amazing speakers and witness their dialogue despite being in another continent. Chris Newman of Sylvanaqua Farms, Helga Garza of Agri-Cultura Network and Rowen White of Sierra Seeds are three Indigenous farmers from Turtle Island (USA) who have been frontline in land and food justice especially concerning First Nations communities. At the centre of this discussion was Indigenous wisdom and knowledge and its appropriation by the regenerative agriculture movement in Turtle Island which is led by white men and backed by corporations. For many indigenous people, the agricultural cycle is also a ceremonial cycle and in several language there is no direct translation for “farmer” as it was a role that intersected with other aspects of daily life. Here again the value of being a responsible descendent and a good future ancestor was uplifted, having responsibility for the land you have as a way to honour those who came before and those who will come after you.

[We would like to note that former employees of Sylvanaqua farms are raising money to safely relocate. We want to show our solidarity to the workers, most of whom are BIPOC, for their tenacity and collectivism. You can read more about their experience here. Despite what occurred there, we still believe Chris Newman’s contributions to this talk was useful and important yet this does not detract from the rights of his workers and former workers. In the future we will write more about the importance of workers rights within the food sovereignty movement and agroecology/regenerative farming movement]

These Gardens are Blueprints: Sowing the Seeds of Food Justice

I wanted to end this lengthy reflection on ORFC this year with this uplifting talk by the brilliant Naima Penniman which was chaired by LION’s own Josina. Despite technical difficulties Penniman delivered a brilliant performance of her poem “Black Gold” as well as sharing the work that Soul Fire Farm has committed to over the past year during the coronavirus pandemic. Soul Fire Farm draws on a reparative justice framework to address food apartheid and the redistribution of land through their Soul Fire in the City and Reparations Map projects. Soul Fire Farm has been a great ally for LION from the very beginning and we want to continue uplifting and showing gratitude for the support they have extended to us.

A Grounding

We ground ourselves when we think of those who have come before us. As descendants of enslaved people, indentured people, colonised people, displaced people, we ground ourselves when we share our gratitude for our ancestors who braided seeds in their hair crossing oceans, we share our gratitude to the rebellions and revolutions that they fought so that we may live. We seek to honour the lives of our ancestors through our commitment to being responsible descendants. In order to be accountable to those who came before us, we must continue healing and striving towards liberation. And we must see ourselves as future ancestors, that liberation may not be achieved in our lifetimes, but our descendants - those who continue our work in healing and repair - will take on this work. So we must think of them as we build our movements, sow our seeds, as we too will pass and the repair work will continue.