Surveillant Metrics

In this research I interrogate how metrics of food insecurity rely on indexes of deprivation, of which Indigeneity is deemed an indicator of social deprivation. I engage the fields of critical Indigenous studies, critical whiteness studies, and Indigenous science, technology, and society. I argue that social deprivation indexes produce and surveil “deprived” geographic food zones according to metrics of whiteness. I make three central arguments through the empirical context of food insecurity interventions for Indigenous people in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. First, accounting for food insecurity through social deprivation indexes produces food insecurity because it does not accurately depict sources of food outside of what has been deemed appropriate (see: “healthy”) through logics of whiteness. Second, solely imagining food insecurity through logics of social deprivation results in interventions of whiteness, which overdetermines how inner-city urban space is designed, surveilled, and made carceral. Third, if food studies does not interrogate and make serious efforts to undo its own whiteness, it will continue to be deficient in its renderings and understanding of food geographies beyond whiteness.