Seeds are our living relatives

As well as securing healthy nourishment, seed keeping is a vital practice for sustaining indigenous culture, language and stories.

Over several years, Elizabeth Hoover has visited Native American farm communities and seed saving projects, documenting efforts to rebuild and maintain traditional food systems. She has written about the relationship between seeds, origin stories and reproductive justice, and about the seed rematriation movement, which returns ancestral plants to the fields and gardens of Native people.

In a relaxed online event, Elizabeth will be in conversation with Edinburgh-based seed saver Hannah Brazil. Join a discussion about taking control of our crops and bodies, welcoming seeds as family members, and the task of relearning how to plant, harvest, and cook them.

Information for participants

Organised by Glasgow Seed Library, and supported by the Climate Fringe Fund.

This event is free but donations are welcomed towards the Akwesasne Freedom School, a Mohawk language immersion school where children learn their Indigenous language, culture, and planting practices, which operates completely on donations and community resources.

The event will be live captioned throughout. If you have further access requests, please email glasgowseedlibrary@cca-glasgow.com.

About the contributors

Elizabeth Hoover is a gardener, beadworker, fancyshawl dancer, and an associate professor in Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley. Her first book The River is In Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community is an ethnographic exploration of Akwesasne Mohawks’ response to Superfund contamination and environmental health research. Her forthcoming book, From Garden Warriors to Good Seeds: Indigenizing the Local Food Movement explores Native American community based farming and gardening projects; the ways in which people are defining and enacting concepts like food sovereignty and seed sovereignty; the role of Native chefs in the food movement; and the fight against the fossil fuel industry to protect heritage foods.

Hannah Brazil is a passionate seed saver, freelance facilitator and is currently finishing an MSc in Medical and Environmental Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research and work revolve around human-nature (dis)connection and planetary health, focussing on regenerative culture, seed saving and the stories we tell of who we are in relation to nature. Hannah is the coordinator for the Salisbury Centre Seed Library and a co-founder of the Edinburgh Seed Network. She has been involved in sustainable community food growing, permaculture and collaborative education for social change projects around the world.

Glasgow Seed School is a season of free workshops, talks and events. It aims to nurture seed stewardship and help growers build climate, food and community resilience. It is organised by Glasgow Seed Library, in collaboration with friends and organisations across the city.