Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Political Ecology of Indigenous Pgaz K'Nyau Food Environment Transitions

The diets of rural and Indigenous communities are impacted by contextual changes in the environments in which people acquire food. This Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement project examines the ways that transitional food environments impact diet quality for members of these communities. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from political ecology, this project contributes to equitable public health outcomes by attending to the experiences of Indigenous and rural women and their contributions as food decision-makers in changing environments. Inclusive understandings of food environments help to inform global public health research and policymaking to promote diet quality and positive nutritional outcomes. The project also contributes to the training and education of a graduate student. Poor quality diet is a major public health burden that is responsible for an estimated 11 million deaths globally each year, and the burden disproportionately affects Indigenous communities. The role of food environments in driving dietary changes is still not fully understood. This doctoral dissertation project contributes to more complete understandings of the relationships between food environments and diets by addressing multiple, complementary research questions. First, the researchers examine how changes to food environments affect individuals’ decision-making? Second, the study elucidates the pathways by which changing food environments lead to heterogeneous outcomes in diet quality. Third, the research considers the social, political, economic and environmental factors that potentially underlie uneven and gendered experiences of food environment change. Mixed methods involving interviews, focus group discussions, geolocated participant observation and participatory mapping are used to investigate changes to individuals’ and communities’ food environments and diets. Developing community-centered methods in collaboration with Indigenous scholars to study changing food environments in rural and Indigenous contexts advances broader interdisciplinary research on diet quality. Enhanced understandings of the relationships between food environments and diets in different contexts help to foster research and policy for equitable and sustainable food system transformations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.