Mark Chatarpal

I am a cultural anthropologist whose teaching and research interests intersect within the fields of Food Studies, Caribbean Studies, and Indigenous Studies. I apply these interests to study how policymakers within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) conceptualize the term ‘food security’ when formulating national food policy that is geared towards indigenous communities and how grassroots indigenous organizations mitigate them through the creation of district-based regulations that encompasses their respective worldviews. My dissertation is titled; What do you mean by food security? The politics of agrarian policymaking in the Caribbean Community.

I have over 6 years of teaching experience in academia and my lived experiences as a first-generation Caribbeanist food scholar has strengthened my capacity to teach and mentor students in the United States, Belize, and Guyana. I have over 7 years of experience conducting academic research pertaining to food security among indigenous groups in Guyana, Belize, and Ghana. My ethnography is centered around several local government ministries, indigenous NGOs, bilateral and multilateral organizations, local politicians, and key policymakers. My applied anthropological capabilities include 3 years of collaborative work conducted with Guyana’s largest indigenous organization, the National Toshao Council (NTC) concerning redefining the term ‘agriculture’ in the 2006 Amerindian Act to align closer with Articles:18, 20 & 23 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Most recently, I concluded a short-term appointment as a Food Policy Specialist for the Forest Peoples Programme where I assisted in identifying constitutional and policy provisions that can strengthen and protect indigenous food systems and land tenure claims for three indigenous institutions in Guyana.