Food banks and the production of scarcity

Abstract

This paper contributes to critical discussions of austerity by examining the constructions of scarcity that underpin it. Specifically, it shows how notions of scarcity (re)emergent in a period of austerity have shaped materially insufficient and stigmatising welfare systems. We do this through the example of UK food banks. We suggest that under austerity a particular moral economy of scarcity has become embedded at the level of common sense, including in the common sense of many of those distributing food aid. In UK food banks this moral economy is shaped by images of the “empty cupboard” and discourses of absolute hunger which normalise practices of (self)rationing and exacerbate food insecurity. Tracing attempts by some food bank managers and volunteers to challenge this moral economy, we conclude with a critical agenda for academics and practitioners to rethink relationships between welfare, austerity, and scarcity.

Feeding the food insecure in Britain: learning from the 2020 COVID-19 crisis

“…The failings of Britain’s welfare state to prevent hunger and ensure good nutrition amongst economically vulnerable people during the second decade of the twenty-first Century has been documented (Barker et al 2019 ; Dowler and Lambie-Mumford 2015 ; Lambie-Mumford 2019 ; Loopstra et al 2015 ). Evidence suggests that lack of financial security, including unemployment, household debt and weaknesses in the state benefits system, is a major driver of food insecurity (Davis and Baumberg Geiger 2016 ; Garthwaite et al 2015 ; Lambie-Mumford and Loopstra 2020 ; May et al 2020 ).…”

“…Food bank use statistics show that in 2018/19 some three million people received food parcels (Sosenko et al 2019 ) compared with 41,000 in 2009/2010 (May et al 2020 ). A recent tally (Independent Food Aid Network UK n.d. ) estimated that the UK has about 2100 food banks, with the majority (60%) of these operated by The Trussell Trust under a social franchise model.…”

“…Exceptionally, the Trussell Trust chain has corporate sponsorship from major supermarkets, and gets income from events management and social enterprise activities (The Trustees of the Trussell Trust 2015 ). Food supplies are often irregular; there have been reports of shortage of some foods and excess of others, with resultant waste (May et al 2020 ).…”

Welfare Convergence, Bureaucracy, and Moral Distancing at the Food Bank

“…In previous work we have engaged with these arguments in a variety of ways, highlighting how whilst responding to the cruelties imposed by austerity UK food banks also sometimes reproduce and further embed discourses (of scarcity, for example) central to it (May et al 2018a); but also the care and commitment many volunteers show to their clients (Cloke et al 2017), and the space food banks can provide for a translation of this 'ethics of care' in to political activism as they foster awareness of the structural inequalities driving food insecurity (Williams et al 2016). Here we engage with this field in a different way.…”

Food support provision in COVID-19 times: a mixed method study based in Greater Manchester

“…Expansion, however, does not automatically ensure that organizations are able to offer the same services and food provision standards. Rather, different opportunities in accessing volunteers, donations and food redistribution schemes contribute to the creation of ‘an uneven geography of “scarcity” that reflects the unequal distribution of wealth at the local and regional level’ (May et al 2020 , p. 213).…”