How can we better understand food practices by viewing them through the lens of movement? Entitled Food Movements / Moving Food , Umbra’s 2022 Biennial Conference on Food, Sustainability, and Environment addresses what happens when people and food products move through regional, national, and international networks.

What are the effects of these movements on local, regional, national, and international communities and cultures? What additional actions and reactions do they precipitate?

The conference aims to respond to such questions in Perugia, Italy, June 9 to 12. I am delighted to be chairing the “Migration” panel. I will also present the paper “Unbordering a Movement: Indigenous Chefs and State Lines.” What happens when political boundaries influence the movement of ingredients? And what happens when these borders police whom may travel and with what? What are the culinary and political consequences? Focusing on the lands now called Canada and the United States, my paper traces the ways state, provincial, and national borders influence the contemporary Indigenous Food Movement. I also map how Indigenous chefs, restaurateurs, and caterers resist these borders.