September 2024
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This chapter explores Indigenous veganism, a concept emerging at the intersection of critical animal studies and Indigenous philosophy, which holds significant potential to support decolonization and indigenization. This chapter contextualizes Indigenous vegan practice within the cultural resurgence of Indigenous peoples in North America, which includes a growing interest in traditional foodways. Plants play a significant and often overlooked role in many traditional diets, and efforts to engage Indigenous values have produced important scholarship that can inform efforts to embrace and express Indigenous food sovereignty. This chapter details how community-based efforts to disconnect from colonial food products and practices, coupled with embracing traditional foods and ways of preparing them, can serve Indigenous-led cultural revitalization efforts. Indigenous vegans, for example, have framed veganism as a personal journey toward better and more just relations with other animals. Engaging critical theories and Indigenous philosophy, common elements in work by key scholars include the rejection of purity ethics, the embracing of traditional food values, and the need to adjust food practices to meet current conditions.