Settler Colonial Classifications of Edibility

Abstract

The pastoral economies introduced during the colonial invasion have radically transformed Australian diets, cultures, and ecosystems. Stolen land was tenured to settlers and emancipated convicts to develop profitable and productive enterprises for the British Empire. Land rights and animal care are intrinsically linked to modern food systems, yet there is a gap in Australian literature regarding the legacy of colonial pastoralism and its connection to current food systems. This essay questions how introduced species evolved to command the Australian diet. Wallabies and kangaroos were legally relegated to national emblems, and thus inedible. Their conditions of being, whether edible, iconic, or wild, were dictated by the Commonwealth Government. The taboo nature of these native marsupials leaves them largely unconsumed, and therefore, unprotected. Modern conditions of edibility are less concerned with physical metabolic matters, instead driven by historic cultural attitudes and political and economic motives. Nourishment was commodified. My research uses Tasmanian legal archives in conjunction with cookbooks and popular iconography to trace the historical legacies of foodways since the invasion. Scholarship around waste, sociology, ecology, and food justice and sovereignty are incorporated to consider how modern agricultural practices perpetuate violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and ecosystems. Modern agriculture affects every being on the planet, both human and more-than-human. My research goal is to encourage people to question their metabolic practices to ascertain how everyday acts of consumption implicate them within unjust systems. Though consumptive wallaby culling is legal, the industry remains privatized, and Indigenous Australians have little agency to influence how their native species are used, and who profits from their utility. By sharing these concerns with researchers from a broad range of disciplines, I hope to connect with individuals who can help to make future metabolic matters more inclusive, more ethical, and more sustainable.