In this episode, Carla Johnston, (she/her) a PhD student in Global Governance at the School of International Policy and Governance at Laurier and member of the Northern Food Systems Research Group, Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, describes her ongoing research. Her work examines the link between global and local food policy and ensures Indigenous knowledge and voices are included at all levels of food policy discussions.
The episode features:
WLU Research Chat S03 Carla
Unknown 00:00
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Shawna Reibling 00:04
Welcome to the third season of Research Chat. In this season graduate students share the challenges of their research work. In this episode, Carolyn Brown will interview Carla Johnson. Let me introduce you to them. Carolyn Brown, who uses pronouns she/her, is an environmental scientist who is pursuing a PhD in biological and chemical sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University. A specialist in human impacts on aquatic environments, Carolyn has over 10 years of experience in the environmental sector, evaluating environmental risks, industrial discharges and environmental regulation across Canada. Carolyn is the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canadian Graduate Scholar Doctoral Award recipient. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Toxicology from the University of Guelph, and a Master of Science in biology, ecology and environmental biology at the University of Waterloo. Carla Johnston, who uses pronouns she/her, is a PhD candidate at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and is an advocate for sustainable food systems. A specialist in participatory research Indigenous rights and food governance from the local to the United Nations, Karla has 10 years of experience in community advocacy and policy development in the Northwest Territories Canada and around the world. Carla is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Joseph Armand Bombardier Graduate Scholarship recipient and Wilfrid Laurier University's 2022 institutional nominee for the SSHRC Impact Award talent category. Karla is affiliated with the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems Research Centre, and the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism for the United Nations Committee on World Food Security. She holds a Master's of Arts in political economy from Carleton University, and a bachelor's in international development studies from Trent University. Thank you to you both for chatting today about how both your research projects aim to create better evidence based policies and systems that affect the health of our ecosystem and our lives. This episode will focus on Carla's research on the link between global and local food policies and whose voices are missing in that conversation. I look forward to hearing more about both your research projects in these topics. I will now turn the microphone over to you Carolyn to learn more about Carla's research.
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Carolyn Brown 02:31
Hi Carla, thank you for chatting with me about your research today. I look forward to learning more about sustainable food systems. Can you tell me about the research group you're a part of and how your work fits into the research program.
Carla Johnston 02:44
I'm a member of a few research groups so bear with me. First, my supervisor Dr. Allison Blay-Palmer is the UNESCO chair on food, biodiversity and sustainability studies. The UNESCO chair uses food systems as a lense to work towards biodiversity protection, enhanced community resilience in the face of climate change, increased opportunities for marginalized groups and improved food security. The UNESCO chair brings together a network of research and practitioners that fit the chair's mandate, and I'm a member of that network. I'm also affiliated with the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, which is the institutional home of the UNESCO chair. The Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems connects citizens practitioners, policymakers, private enterprise and academics to work together to imagine and foster food systems that are fair, healthy, ecologically regenerative, culturally appropriate, prosperous and, inclusive. My research has been an active part of bringing together these different actors in the Northwest Territories to figure out how to bring about these food system ideals in practice in that specific context. As part of the Laurier center for sustainable food systems, we have the Northern Food Systems Research Group, which is headed by my other supervisor, Dr. Andrew Spring. This group specializes in sustainable food systems research within the communities in the Northwest Territories Canada, we prioritize building trust based relationships to create community defined research projects. Equally important, we make sure that our research has practical action outcomes, like building a harvester safety app, holding on the land camps, engaging in political advocacy with governments and writing community level policies. I was one of Andrew's first students in this group during my master's, so my research has helped to shape this group into what it is today. Lastly, I'm a member of the Balsillie School Environment and Resource Research Cluster. It addresses the global governance challenges associated with climate change, other large scale environmental degradation and, resource depletion. My research fits into this cluster through understanding how food contributes to these environmental challenges, but also how they can be a solution, especially through improved governance practices from the local to the global.
Carolyn Brown 04:57
What do you plan to explore in your research?
Carla Johnston 04:59
So my research has two research questions. First, I asked how could the knowledge and practices of Indigenous peoples that I work with in the Northwest Territories influence global food governance spaces? And how could the policy creation processes at the global level support local Indigenous communities to maintain their Indigenous food systems and adapt to climate change. So my research takes part in two different places. Part of my work takes place at the global level, and I look at food governance. And so there's a few different UN bodies that I look at in my research, such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Committee on World Food Security, and the one time event, the UN Food System summit that happened last year in September. The second area of my research, the second location is that I work in the Northwest Territories, and I work with two Indigenous communities Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation and Sambaa K'e First Nation. One of the things that I noticed when I first started doing this research is, I went and got to attend the UN Committee on World Food Security plenary back in 2018. And I was really surprised to see that there was no representation from Indigenous Peoples in Canada, within that UN space. And so that really showed me that there was a gap happening in these governance processes, the people that I knew and worked with quite closely in the Northwest Territories, I didn't see their voices at the UN. And so I made this connection, or lack of connection really, between these two different spaces. Why did I see this gap as important? I saw this gap as important for a couple of reasons. First, because we need to have more sustainable food systems. Our global food systems contribute to large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, large scale biodiversity loss, and many other environmental degradations, social implications, and, economic disadvantages and inequalities in our world. And we also know that 80% of the world's biodiversity is located on the 22% of land in this world that's controlled within Indigenous territories. Indigenous peoples have been the stewards of biodiversity and have shown that they have sustainable food systems. And so we need to be learning from Indigenous food systems about how we can make the rest of our food systems more sustainable. Also, the second reason why I see this gap as important is we're still trying to build nation to nation relationships with Indigenous Peoples and we're really just starting to figure that out. Indigenous peoples have their own self determining societies with their own political systems that have laws and rules about how to act in society, but also in relationship to the natural world, they just look different than our Western political systems. And sometimes those Indigenous systems have been buried for hundreds of years of assimilation pressures, that said that these systems are not good or that they needed to change. And so we need to be making space for Indigenous way of life within our world, and our political systems rather than pushing it out or forcing them to change. And so my research looks at part of this puzzle around nation to nation relationships, and takes it beyond just Canada to the UN level, focusing on sustainable food systems.
Carla Johnston 04:59
So with my research I see in Canada that we're trying to incorporate more Indigenous voices in the environmental impact assessment process was interesting that at the UN level, you're not seeing that.
Carla Johnston 08:05
Yeah, and I guess a good way to see that is that the inclusion of Indigenous voices within governance processes, kind of like the environmental impact assessments, is different in different places. And some places have had more success and practice bringing Indigenous voices into these processes. Whereas other places such as the committees that I have been working with, at the UN level, they haven't done that yet, or they're struggling to do that, or they're just not putting an emphasis on including Indigenous voices in those spaces. And so one of the things that I've noticed at the UN level is that there's more influence for Indigenous peoples in certain bodies of the UN. So, of course, there's the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. And of course, that's a place that has much involvement of Indigenous Peoples. And we're also seeing Indigenous Peoples engage quite strongly within climate change governance at the UN level, that can be seen through the influence of Indigenous knowledge being included within the IPCC reports. And as well as seeing activism happening at the climate conferences around the world. However, there are lots of other spaces within the UN that haven't included Indigenous voices as strongly. In the space that I'm working in, it's kind of a mixed bag. So in food governance, it's a bit of a mix. So there have been really strong efforts to bring in Indigenous voices in some spaces, but it's through some areas of the world and and not in others. And so I kind of see it as they're just starting. And they can improve their systems to include Indigenous peoples but currently there's some holes and there's some gaps in how they're doing that. At the UN Committee on brown food security, there is a formal mechanism to include Indigenous voices and this is the civil society and indigenous people mechanism for the UN Committee on World Food Security. Here, we do see Indigenous voices from different places around the world being included. However, currently, there aren't any actors from Canada as part of this mechanism.
Carolyn Brown 10:42
How do you plan to explore your research question?
Carla Johnston 10:45
I'm exploring my research question using case studies at both the local level and the global level and this is kind of a unique approach. Most research either does one or the other focuses on does really strong work with a local community, or it focuses on global governance processes. And mine is trying to mix the two in practice and in knowledge creation and so this makes it a unique way to do the research. So at the local level, I'm using participatory action research to work with the two First Nations, Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation and Sambaa K'e First Nation. And I want to take this time to kind of explain what participatory action research is. So it can be explained by breaking down the different names, the different words in its names. So participatory means that you work with your research partners, rather than studying on them. So it's really working with them, rather than them being research subjects. The researcher is not the only expert in the research process, the people that you are working with also are knowledge holders, and knowledge creators. In terms of action, we make sure that our research has practical action outcomes that help communities reach their goals. So an example from my own research is that I have been part of writing community level strategies and action plans for both communities around climate change, and sustainable agriculture. Lastly, in terms of research, it is still a research process, you're answering a shared question, you are studying a certain phenomena, issue or challenge and you're using methodological tools to do these things. So things like doing interviews, field notes, observations, it can be quantitative, it can be qualitative and so there's still research processes happening there. And you're also creating and producing knowledge and insights together as partners in the research. And so what this kind of looks like in my own research is that I travel to Kakisa, which is for Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation, and to Sambaa K'e, which is for Sambaa K'e First Nation, and I work with community leadership and First Nation members to create and design research projects, and then we carry them out together. And sometimes that means I'm the one doing the interviews, but I bring that interview data back to my community partners, and we discuss what this means for their community, and how this can help them to reach their goals. And then I go back and create something like a sustainable agriculture plan for the community. And then I bring that back to them again, and we talk about is, this right? Did I capture what the community would like me to focus on? And so it's this kind of iterative process of continuing to work with the community and making sure that the research is meeting their goals and their needs. The other part of my research is that I'm focusing at the global level, I have been a participant observer of the UN Committee on World Food Security for the past four years. I got to be an observer for their agroecology policy negotiations, which meant many late nights, actually more like early mornings where I was waking up at two or three in the morning, because they're stationed in Rome, so that I could listen in to the nations around the world creating policy around agroecology. And this was oftentimes, you know, arguments about where a comma should go versus what words should be used. And it was all a bit weird to be arguing over words and commas and that sort of thing. But you could see when you looked at the document as a whole kind of what they were going for, and that these were important issues that will actually affect the world, and that these were policies that countries can take back to their own nations, and implement. And so when you looked at the broader picture, you could actually see kind of how important these processes were, even if they were just arguing over a comma. The other part of my research has been doing interviews with global advocates. So this has been Indigenous peoples and other organizations as well as employees of UN institutions to ask how to improve the participation of indigenous peoples within these global food governance spaces.
Carolyn Brown 15:04
What has that engagement caused you to reflect on?
Carla Johnston 15:08
So there's been a couple of things. First, on a more personal note, I've been thinking about the connection between humans and natural systems. And that's actually where I see a bit of a connection between your work and my work, Carolyn, you're looking at the human impacts that they're having on environments and how to measure those, and in the hopes of trying to reduce them. And my research in working with the two First Nations up in the Northwest Territories has really made me think about how humans are part of natural cycles, and that we're not separate from them. But we're actually part of them. And this is something that's new to me as a non-Indigenous person and as somebody that's grown up in Western society, we often see humans as being the users of environmental resources, and that we use them for our benefit. But in the communities that I work with, they see themselves as part of these natural cycles and that means that humans can be protectors, but they're really part of these systems together. And this has been something that I've struggled with, to understand what this means in the world, and to really try and humble myself and learn from the partners that I have about this different way of understanding the world and to recognize that this way of understanding the world is also equally important and deserving of respect, and that it's not better or worse than our western way of understanding the world, but that we need to find some way to put them on the similar footing. And so this has been something I've been reflecting on, I definitely don't have all the answers, but something that I've been trying to kind of think through throughout my research process. And then also, from a research point of view, I really had to reflect on how to respectfully engage with Indigenous communities in my research. And so really, what this has looked like for me is taking time to build relationships, and also taking the time to ask what the community needs, and then implement that into my research project. And that's meant that, you know, things can sometimes take a little bit longer than I expected. I went up to Sambaa K’e with the idea of doing workshops with community members about what they want to see as the future of agriculture in their community. However, once I got there, we were still in a context of COVID, and so most community members were kind of not comfortable meeting in large groups, such as a workshop. And so we decided to switch from doing workshops over to doing personal interviews with community members. And so this meant that I had to quite quickly change my research process from a full day workshop, something that I was hoping we would have a full day to engage with, to down to these one to two hour interviews. And so that took some really quick methodological thinking. But it also meant that I couldn't start doing those research processes exactly when I would have liked to, so it took a little bit more time than I would have liked. However, this was really important to the community, and that this was what they needed out of the research process.
Carolyn Brown 18:12
I was also gonna say, Where I come from, when we say the word environment, we mean humans as well, which I remember consulting this, government mandated the one mine you're working for, to do an ecological risk assessment, which to us just means the animals and the plants. And then we submit it and they're like, What about the humans? I'm like, Well, you shouldn't used the word "environmental" risk assessment then. What are the next steps in your work?
Carla Johnston 18:41
So the next steps in my work are that I have my interview data and my field notes. And so I've been going through those and analyzing them and writing up those into some articles. And that's kind of where I am in the dissertation process is the writing. But really what I think, this research has brought more questions than it has answers. I've definitely noticed through the research process, there is clearly a gap. There's clearly a gap in terms of how the knowledge of Indigenous communities can make its way up to global governance spaces, but also how the policies and the policy processes that happen at the global level can somehow filter down to smaller local communities. And this research has established that gap. But now there's a lot of questions about what to do about that gap, and how to improve and make better connections between the global and local so that there can be more participation and influence of Indigenous Peoples within those spaces.
Carolyn Brown 19:39
What should people remember how to shape effective global food policy that benefits the global and local contexts?
Carla Johnston 19:47
So what people need to remember about shaping effective food policy at the global level and at the local level is first, that we really need to be having more sustainable food systems. Our food systems are currently unsustainable, and we need to find solutions for this. Two, there are a few to no Indigenous voices from Canada within global food governance spaces. And three, the food policies that are being created at the global level are really not making it down to local communities currently. And so we need to find ways to have Indigenous voices from the local level have more influence within global food systems. And this is important because we need to be learning from Indigenous food systems of how to be more sustainable. They show us examples of how to protect biodiversity and to maintain healthy ecosystems. And that's also important because we're trying to build nation to nation relationships with Indigenous Peoples, but we're really just starting to figure this out. So Indigenous Peoples have their own self determining societies with their own political systems that have laws and rules about how to act in society, but also how to have a relationship with the natural world. They just look different than our Western political systems. And sometimes they're buried under hundreds of years of assimilation pressures that have said that these systems are not good and need to change. And so we need to be making space for indigenous way of life within our world rather than pushing it out. My research looks at, part a small piece of, this puzzle of nation to nation relationships, and takes it beyond Canada up to the UN level.
Carolyn Brown 21:25
So thank you, Carla, for talking with me today. It is really interesting to learn about connecting that local nation to the global nation.
Carla Johnston 21:33
It was really nice speaking with you as well, Carolyn,
Shawna Reibling 21:36
Thank you to both Carolyn and Carla for sharing their research. The next series of episodes will feature a different pair of graduate students sharing their research experiences throughout their graduate work at Laurier
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Shawna Reibling 21:55
I hope you enjoyed listening to today's discussion. If you'd like to learn more about environmental impact assessments, or global to local food policy, or to use these podcasts in your classroom. There are resources additional readings and details about the work of each of these researchers and their research groups on our website wlu.ca/research-chat. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to be notified of new research chat episodes. Research Chat is a partnership between the Office of Research Services, the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and the Laurier Library. Thank you to everyone who's contributed to the creation of Research Chat. A gratitude list can be found on our webpage.
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