Book Launch – ‘Recovering Our Ancestral Foodways: Indigenous Traditions as a Recipe for Living Well’

The Program on Latin America and the Caribbean presents Mariaelena Huambachano, assistant professor, SU Global Indigenous Cultures and Environmental Justice Department and Center.

Professor Mariaelena Huambachano’s recent book “Recovering Our Ancestral Foodways: Indigenous Traditions as a Recipe for Living Well” (2024), offers a profound exploration of the philosophies of well-being and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of the Māori and Quechua peoples. Drawing from over a decade of immersive fieldwork in Peru and Aotearoa, New Zealand, the book reveals how these Indigenous communities define and achieve well-being through their foodways.

The book advocates for integrating Indigenous knowledge into sustainable food systems, presenting the concept of Chakana/Māhutonga. It also introduces the Khipu Model, a research methodology for studying Indigenous knowledge systems. “Recovering Our Ancestral Foodways,” is a celebration of the lore of Quechua and Māori and of the world’s Indigenous peoples in safeguarding food systems, innovation, practices, and, ultimately, the well-being of humankind.

Moderator: Danika Medak-Saltzman (Women and Gender Studies and NAIS).

Commentators: Professors Gail Hamner (Religion) and Thomas Perreault (Geography).

Co-sponsored by Syracuse University’s Humanities Center. 

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Biography:

A native Peruvian Indigenous scholar, Mariaelena Huambachano, is an assistant professor at Syracuse University helping to build the Global Indigenous Cultures and Environmental Justice Department and Center. Huambachano’s research and teaching are rooted in an interdisciplinary approach to Indigenous studies, environmental studies, and sustainable development. These areas encompass food and climate justice, environmental governance, agroecology, public policy, community-driven development, traditional ecological knowledge, and decolonizing methodologies.