Professor Michael Classens assembled special issue of Canadian Food Studies titled Confronting Anti-Black, Anti-Indigenous, and Anti-Asian Racisms in Food Systems in Canada and co-authored the editorial. An exerpt appears below:
The impetus for this themed section came out of the broader reckoning that touched off in the summer of 2020 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. The Canadian Association for Food Studies board, like so many organizations struggling to respond to such brazen violence, released a statement on racialized police violence and systemic racism. In the statement the CAFS board commits to more deliberately centering the work of anti-racism in our association̶ —and this included two shorter-term projects. Curating and publishing an open access resource list on food and racism in so-called Canada, and publishing a themed section on racism in the food system. The CFP for the special issue was released the following May, 2021, and read in part “As we reckon with the ways white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonization has shaped food systems, we must also reflect on and redress dominant modes of thought and approaches that reproduce inequity within the academy (e.g., research and teaching) and society at large. As such, we welcome submissions that centre diverse ways of knowing and methods of knowledge production.”