Conditional by Conduct: Nutritional Citizenship and the Differential Governing of Indigenous Food Security

Indigenous food security in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is differentially governed through programs and technologies that aim to make Indigenous people better biocitizens, through the medium of nutrition, rather than more food secure. The author brings together theorizations of governmentality, biocitizenship, and healthism to articulate what they refer to as nutritional citizenship. The author interrogates how expectations of nutritional citizenship are embedded in notions of food security, which results in the differential and disciplinary governing of Indigenous people in Winnipeg. They contend that the fields of Indigenous studies, citizenship studies, and food studies serve as a critical juncture to undertake analyses that attend to shifting and differential modes of citizenship and to understand how food becomes a barometer of appropriate conduct to be a good citizen. Focusing on interventions in Indigenous food insecurity in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the author demonstrates how education and municipal zoning are operationalized to demarcate expectations of nutritional citizenship and argues that when food security hinges on the requirement to be a good biocitizen, food security becomes conditional by conduct rather than conditional on access.