1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910557481103321

Autore

De Souza Rebecca

Titolo

Feeding the other : whiteness, privilege, and neoliberal stigma in food pantries / / Rebecca de Souza

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, : The MIT Press, 2019

Cambridge : , : MIT Press, , [2019]

ISBN

9780262352796

0262352796

9780262352789

0262352788

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (313 pages)

Collana

Food, health, and the environment

Disciplina

363.8/8309776

Soggetti

Food banks - Minnesota

Poor - Minnesota

Stigma (Social psychology)

Social stratification

Paternalism

Racism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: neoliberal stigma, food pantries, and an unjust food system -- Key conceptual themes -- Voices of hunger: making the invisible visible -- The "good white women" at the Chum Food Shelf -- Spiritual entrepreneurs at Ruby's Pantry -- Cultures of suspicion: making visible the invisible -- Health citizens: choosing good food amid scarcity -- Conclusion: imagining a future for food pantries.

Sommario/riassunto

How food pantries stigmatize their clients through a discourse that emphasizes hard work, self help, and economic productivity rather than food justice and equity. The United States has one of the highest rates of hunger and food insecurity in the industrialized world, with poor households, single parents, and communities of color disproportionately affected. Food pantries--run by charitable and faith-based organizations--rather than legal entitlements have become



a cornerstone of the government's efforts to end hunger. In Feeding the Other , Rebecca de Souza argues that food pantries stigmatize their clients through a discourse that emphasizes hard work, self help, and economic productivity rather than food justice and equity. De Souza describes this "framing, blaming, and shaming" as "neoliberal stigma" that recasts the structural issue of hunger as a problem for the individual hungry person. De Souza shows how neoliberal stigma plays out in practice through a comparative case analysis of two food pantries in Duluth, Minnesota. Doing so, she documents the seldom-acknowledged voices, experiences, and realities of people living with hunger. She describes the failure of public institutions to protect citizens from poverty and hunger; the white privilege of pantry volunteers caught between neoliberal narratives and social justice concerns; the evangelical conviction that food assistance should be "a hand up, not a handout"; the culture of suspicion in food pantry spaces; and the constraints on food choice. It is only by rejecting the neoliberal narrative and giving voice to the hungry rather than the privileged, de Souza argues, that food pantries can become agents of food justice.