Prior to this week, agroecology was not part of my vocabulary. What really stuck out to me was the example given in the keywords post, talking about Brazil and its production of soybeans. While a crop like this can boost the national economy, monocropping can lead to decreased soil nutrients, a decline in biodiversity, overuse of fertilizers, and other significant issues. Some popular examples of this are corn and wheat, which are some of the widely grown industrial crops in the United States. From my understanding, Indigenous Agroecology combats issues like this through the utilization of natural resources, the implementation of Indigenous practices, and the utilization of plants available in the immediate region.

Discussing this made me recall something I’d learned from watching an episode of Chef’s Table a while back. The episode was about a chef named Virgilio Martínez and his restaurant called Central, in Peru. He enjoys focusing on and preserving native plants and ingredients as well as indigenous cooking techniques. He was particularly interested in Peruvian corn, and I was shocked when he showed all of the different varieties. I grew up in the United States, and I was only ever exposed to yellow, or maybe the occasional white corn. He explained that the beautiful range of the shapes, sizes, and colors of the Peruvian corn was a result of the preservation of biodiversity and indigenous cultivation methods.

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Thinking about decolonization is rather new to me. I decided to do some more outside research to really try and understand the full meaning behind the word, because up until the beginning of this course I’d just heard it in passing. It seems to me as if decolonization goes beyond the formal reclamation of territory, but also the reintroduction of cultural practices and languages as well as beginning to heal from the traumas caused by colonization. However, decolonization cannot be a one-sided effort, and proper tools and support need to be given to these groups in order for them to be restored.

After reading through Smith, Yang, and Tuck’s text, I found parts of it to be rather discouraging. Tuck made a point of saying decolonization efforts have only been fought for by other indigenous scholars as well as pointing out that when white scholars ask questions about indigenous works, “they drain the energy and imagination of indigenous scholarship.” I do believe it is not the job of indigenous people to educate others on their oppression and trauma, but I couldn’t help but feel like these opinions were rather one-sided, and didn’t take into account other points of view. The repetitive use of the term “white settler” bothered me as well, because it seemingly assumes every person who isn’t indigenous is then an oppressor and opponent of the indigenous community. I do not wish to speak over indigenous voices, but in my mind, it’s hard to see this term as anything but presumptuous.