“Free” food with a side of shame? Combating stigma in emergency food assistance programs in the quest for food justice

Bruckner, Heide K.; Westbrook, Marisa; Loberg, Lindsey; Teig, Ellen; Schaefbauer, Chris

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.04.021

Cited by 27 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…When eating with people at the soup kitchen, I actively tried to highlight similarities between people’s experiences of navigating the devolved safety net. Echoing the findings of Bruckner et al ( 2021 ), my attempts at conversation, more often than not, failed to spark interest or were immediately shut down, as if no one sitting at the table desired to understand the similarities of their class peers. 9 Of course, each person did have a drastically different lived experience, which calls attention to the necessity of answering part of Loïc Wacquant’s ( 2008 , 245) interrogation in Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Urban Marginality : “How are we to unify [people who], while they may occupy briefly or durably, close positions in the structure of social and urban space in synchronic cross-section, follow divergent trajectories or embody dissimilar dispositions and orientations towards the future?” The findings in this article underscore the importance of grappling with this question.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…My study took place in a soup kitchen, a site where scholars have repeatedly pointed out the shame and stigma associated with free, or “second hand,” food (Bruckner et al 2021 ; De Souza 2019 ; Poppendieck 1998 ; Riches 2018 ). The concept of “neoliberal stigma,” developed by de Souza ( 2019 ), situates stigmatization by both food pantry volunteers and individuals within the contemporary political and economic context.…”

Section: The Emergence Of Contractual Citizenshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 2 See Bruckner et al ( 2021 ) for further analyses of how clients of emergency food assistance programs reproduce neoliberal stigma and hinder social solidarity. …”

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confidence: 99%

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“Hurry up and wait”: Stigma, Poverty, and Contractual Citizenship

Mott

2022

Qual Sociol

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The emergence of welfare contractualism in the United States in the 1970s marked a shift from viewing welfare as an entitlement to viewing welfare as a right to be earned through work. Combined with the continual degradation of labor markets since the 1970s, the rise of neoliberal ideology emphasizing individualism, and the passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the devolved welfare system – most often managed by a myriad of social service nonprofits – has exacerbated the difficulties of the poor. Scholars have noted, for instance, the loss of civil rights and the proliferation of administrative burdens – including incessant waiting – with which poor people seeking aid are increasingly faced. But “contractual citizenship,” I argue, has not just remade relations between the poor and the state. Rather, as a diffuse cultural ethos, contractual citizenship has also remade relations between and amongst the poor themselves, exacerbating stigmatization, distancing, and denigration. Drawing upon an ethnography of a soup kitchen based in Syracuse, New York, I argue that as a consequence of contractual citizenship, prospective recipients of aid and the poor more broadly adapt their behavior to appear as deserving, worthy citizens and, simultaneously, externally defame their peers for their lesser behaviors. Those who take maximum advantage of free resources – such as attending multiple emergency food programs and taking more than one plate of food – are often deemed by other poor recipients of aid as greedy, ungrateful, and selfish. Thus, the repetitious and time-consuming nature of interacting with the state for basic resources – such as housing or welfare – is further complicated by this intraclass stigma. These findings not only shed light on the challenges of building solidarity amongst the poor but show how political and economic shifts influence how poor people interact with each other and the state.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: The Emergence Of Contractual Citizenshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Hurry up and wait”: Stigma, Poverty, and Contractual Citizenship

Mott

2022

Qual Sociol

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“…Furthermore, organizations can engage volunteers who know multi-languages to support the community to eliminate the language barrier. Receiving free food from charity and community sources is associated with shame and social stigma [21,22]. Social shyness, an indication of poverty, and recognition of being socially weak are related to free food [21,23].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Barriers of Local Organizations for Providing Free Food Support in the Priority Neighborhood, Toronto: What We Need Further

Islam¹,

Akter²

2022

EJNFS

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Introduction: The provincial and federal governments provided emergency funding to local community organizations for free food support to people affected by COVID-19. The study's goals were to explore the barriers of the people and the organizations while receiving and providing free food support and what further was needed to give the people food support in the priority neighborhood. Methods: Nine representatives of the local community organizations and 15 volunteers participated in the community conversation or the extensive group discussion. They shared their experiences about barriers and what we further needed to provide food support for the priority neighborhood like Taylor Massey. Two note-takers obtained data from the community conversation. This is a qualitative study. It used a thematic approach to analyze the data and interpretation. Results: Information lacking about free food, language barriers, the social stigma associated with free food support, and fear of COVID-19 were the barriers of community people to receiving food support. On the other hand, the community organizations lacked information about who needed real food support, lacked enough transportation support to distribute the food, enough empty spaces to store food, and enough numbers of committed and trained volunteers to help with the food distribution. Also, the community organizations had limited funding to meet people's food needs. The local community organizations needed an assessment to understand the available resources so that local organizations could use the resources for an effective food program. Furthermore, the organizations required coordination and extended food funding to affected families. In addition, the local organizations needed to work with community gardens, community kitchens, and food banks to support and meet the community's demands. Conclusion: People and local organizations had information and communication, social, structural and systemic, and financial barriers while receiving and providing food in the priority neighborhood. The study indicated what were needed to make the food support program effective.

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“…However, these programs are also often sites where discriminatory actions associated with stigmatizing views of the “undeserving poor” (Hansen et al, 2014) are carried out. Feelings of judgment, devaluation, and social isolation have been frequently reported in studies among people with food insecurity and have been identified as barriers in successfully navigating nutritional assistance channels (Bruckner et al, 2021; Graham et al, 2018; Knowles et al, 2016; Oemichen & Smith, 2016; Swales et al, 2020; Van der Horst et al, 2014). As such, many people who are food insecure do not reap the ostensibly health-enhancing benefits of food assistance programs (Poppendieck, 1999).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Disability, food insecurity, and nutritional assistance in the context of COVID-19 pandemic: Interrogating the role of perceived everyday discrimination.

Ciciurkaite¹,

Brown²

2024

Stigma and Health

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The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the need for nutritional assistance among many households, but prior research suggests that people with disabilities and other marginalized groups have been less likely to seek needed assistance due to perceived discriminatory experiences. We examined variation in the use of food assistance programs during the pandemic using data from a community survey of working-age adults with a sizeable subsample of people with disabilities in the Intermountain West region of the United States (N = 1,745). Study findings revealed that having a self-reported disability was associated with greater participation in food assistance programs, which was driven by higher rates of food insecurity. However, the mediated association between disability and nutritional assistance was reduced for food insecure adults who reported greater experiences of perceived daily discrimination. The implication is that perceived discriminatory experiences have diminished the benefits of health-promoting social services during the pandemic. Ways in which the findings extend previous literature on disability, social marginalization, and health disparities is also discussed.

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“Free” food with a side of shame? Combating stigma in emergency food assistance programs in the quest for food justice

Cited by 27 publications

References 31 publications

“Hurry up and wait”: Stigma, Poverty, and Contractual Citizenship

“Hurry up and wait”: Stigma, Poverty, and Contractual Citizenship

Barriers of Local Organizations for Providing Free Food Support in the Priority Neighborhood, Toronto: What We Need Further

Disability, food insecurity, and nutritional assistance in the context of COVID-19 pandemic: Interrogating the role of perceived everyday discrimination.

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