A01=Kasey Jernigan
Author_Kasey Jernigan
Category=JBCC4
Category=JBSL11
Category=JHMC
Category=VFMD
Choctaw
Choctaw identity
commodity foods
embodied violence
eq_bestseller
eq_health-lifestyle
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
foodways
historical trauma
indigenous food
indigenous health
indigenous heritage
indigenous identity
indigenous women
native identity
oklahoma choctaw nation
settler colonialism
Product details
- ISBN 9780816556212
- Weight: 399g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 17 Feb 2026
- Publisher: University of Arizona Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The term “commod bod” is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity food programs.
In Commod Bods, Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs (commodity foods) have shaped foodways; how these foodways are linked to bodies and health, particularly “obesity” and related conditions; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with settler colonialism and experiences of structural violence, identity making, and heritage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Organized thematically, the book moves from a critical history of obesity and health in Indian Country to narratives of Choctaw women navigating food, memory, and belonging. Chapters such as “Food and Fellowship” and “Heritage, Embodied” center personal stories that show how food is not only sustenance but also a site of connection, resistance, and meaning making.
Food is critical to cultural survival and affirmation. For Choctaw people, the intentional demise of traditional foodways and dependence on federal food programs are specific experiences that inform part of what it means to be Choctaw today.
In Commod Bods, Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs (commodity foods) have shaped foodways; how these foodways are linked to bodies and health, particularly “obesity” and related conditions; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with settler colonialism and experiences of structural violence, identity making, and heritage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Organized thematically, the book moves from a critical history of obesity and health in Indian Country to narratives of Choctaw women navigating food, memory, and belonging. Chapters such as “Food and Fellowship” and “Heritage, Embodied” center personal stories that show how food is not only sustenance but also a site of connection, resistance, and meaning making.
Food is critical to cultural survival and affirmation. For Choctaw people, the intentional demise of traditional foodways and dependence on federal food programs are specific experiences that inform part of what it means to be Choctaw today.
Kasey Jernigan is an assistant professor of American studies and anthropology at the University of Virginia, where she also co-directs the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute. She has received research support from the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the USDA, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. She is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
