Food as a Means of Colonial Control: A Reading of Jack Davis’ No Sugar

Abstract

The colonisers of Australia held and confined the Australian Aborigines in reserves so as to control them. The lives of the Aborigines in these reserves were miserable as they lost all freedom. Every aspect of their lives, including their food, was dictated by the colonial administration. The Aborigines, when they were taken away from their traditional environments were deprived of their traditional foods. Instead, in the reserves, they were given rations that were both inadequate and alien to them. Jack Davis’ “No Sugar” reveals how food rationing was a part of the colonial biopolitics.