JUST EATS PODCAST

Food nourishes us but not in equal measure, and not necessarily for the same reasons. The People’s Food Policy of Canada identifies “food as a foundation for healthy lives, communities, economies, and eco-systems” while pointing out that much work needs to be done in order to make this a reality. Feeding ourselves and maintaining culture through food can represent acts of self-care and self-preservation when marginalized by institutionalized racism, colonization, elitism, and misogyny. Therefore, as much as our current food systems are built upon and uphold oppression, food also nourishes the resistance. It is the resistance to corporatized, unsustainable, and colonized food that we want to explore through Just Eats by learning from Canadian food activists about how they understand race, racism, and resistance through food.

Dr. Courtney Szto (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University. Her research focuses on racism and anti-racism in the realms of sport, food, and outdoor culture. Courtney’s first book, “Changing on the Fly: Hockey through the voices of South Asian Canadians” won the Outstanding Book Award at the 2021 North American Society for the Sociology of Sport annual conference. She has worked with various groups to provide anti-racism education including the Hockey Diversity Alliance, Black Girl Hockey Club, and the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association. Courtney also executive produced a short documentary about bike waste called “Revolutions“, which won Best Canadian Short Doc at the B.C. Environmental Film Festival in 2022. Learn more about Courtney’s work [HERE].

Dr. M. Shobhana Xavier (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Religion and Diaspora at the School of Religion at Queen’s University. Her research focuses mainly on Muslim communities in the Global North and South Asia, and practices of faith, piety, and spirituality, as they pertain to migration and resettlement. She is the author of several books on Islam and Muslims, including the most recent “The Dervishes of the North: Rumi, Whirling and the Making of Sufism in Canada” and is a co-editor of the forthcoming edited volume “Sufism in Canada: Weaving Islamic Practice and Popular Spirituality.” Shobhana is also a certified primary school teacher and has taught in England, Sri Lanka, and Canada. Now she teaches university students on topics that relate to religion and race, culture, gender, politics, and popular culture at Queen’s University.

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This podcast draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).