Written by James Lunt, FLAME member
We often think that concepts central to the LWA such as “food justice” and “food sovereignty”, are modern ones, borne from heightened awareness of food politics. And while La Via Campesina was one of the first to coin these terms, they were certainly not the first to fight for them. Indigenous people from across the world died for these concepts, and colonial authorities weaponise
But where there is colonialism, there is resistance. Food became a weapon in the arsenal of the coloniser, but also one for the resistance. Growing and raising became resistance in itself, and people were killed for it. The buffalo were destroyed by the European immigrants, but these huge animals became a way the Comanche became successful enough to stop the imperial machine in its tracks. And where we see the parallels in disposses
One of these groups of people fighting against specifically enclosure, were the Diggers. This group of people were active close to where I live in South East England, and while the roundheads and cavaliers clashed in the English civil war, they fought their own battles in the commons and fields of Surrey. This common land was the victim of enclosure, turning from somewhere belonging to and farmed by the community to one directly owned by those able to purchase it. It had transformed the English countryside, and now most people think of commons as glorified parks, rather than somewhere to plant cabbage, graze sheep or harvest broom. But this is exactly what the Diggers did, repossessing land stolen from them by the lord of manor.