Food Sharing in Religious and Indigenous Traditions*: Drawing Inspirations for Contemporary Food cum Climate Politics and Ethics

Abstract

The central question this chapter seeks to address is: ‘What lessons and inspirations can we draw from the world’s major religious traditions and indigenous subsistence cultures about how to shape a more other-regarding global food system so that it is more humane and inclusive, and also protective of the dignity of those connected to food, such as agricultural producers, workers and animals as well as promotes a more ethically mindful culture of eating?’ In response, I highlight four mutually reinforcing and interlocking impulses expressed by these traditions as their adherents and the rest of the world navigate one of the major crises of the twenty-first century, climate change: (1) overcoming ‘othering;’ (2) enacting and reinforcing ethics through ritual, worship and self-reflection; (3) internalizing compassion and gratitude; and (4) discharging collective moral action. These impulses inspire a call towards the development of an ethic of sharing to supplement the dominant strand in today’s food ethics, which tends to focus on ethical consumerism.

*The descriptions discussed in this chapter are not meant to be universal or monolithic claims about all of the world’s religion and Indigenous traditions nor applicable to all religions and Indigenous traditions. Rather, these broad strokes are illustrative of some significant and general threads from which deeper conversations may be struck.