PhD Project:
Growing Together: A Feminist Ethnography of Community Food activism in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Working from a feminist perspective, this PhD project will research the work of community food projects to gain deeper insights into their approaches, impacts for members and communities, and challenges they face within the broader context of austerity and cost of living crisis. I will consider if and how through growing and sharing food these projects may re-ascribe responsibilities for life-sustaining care from the individual (i.e., women as is set out in neoliberal rhetoric) to the collective, also creating a space for developing discourses around interconnected social inequalities and injustices.

 

Context

The dominant model of food aid in the UK in 2023 is the foodbank. Although indeed addressing a vital need, this approach has been critiqued for ignoring the structural causes of food injustices, re-enforcing disempowering power dynamics for users, and 'letting the government off the hook' by filling in the gaps made by austerity. However, people are undeniably experiencing higher levels of food insecurity than they were 10 years ago, particularly in accessing nutritious, culturally appropriate food. Recently this need has been further heightened by the 'cost of living crisis'. Although the community food projects I am researching do offer access to food, they have adopted more explicitly political  approaches, aiming to support communities through collective action and highlighting the need for structural changes, rather than ascribing personal responsibility.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

Key Research Aim:​

Investigate how the practices of UK food movements may enable a feminist ethic of 'caring with' within the broader context of neoliberal austerity.​​

​

​​

Methodology: How will I collect data?

Drawing on on feminist traditions of qualitative and auto-ethnographic research, this project will collect information through my own experiences of working within community food projects, as well as listening to the experiences of members, volunteers, and attendees. I will use a multi-site ethnography, spending 12 months working in different community food projects in various roles. To form my main data set I will be writing up detailed observational fieldnotes following participating in any work in these spaces. These notes will not contain specific names/ details about people I'm interacting with to ensure anonymity. I will also conduct supplementary interviews and workshops with members/ volunteers to gain deeper insights into their experiences and perspectives.

 

As an ethnographer I will- to an extent- see where the research takes me, and as such take a broad initial focus so as to not become blinkered on a particular issue or idea. I will have the above research questions in the back of my mind, though it is possible they will evolve over time. I also intend to use my arts background to work through ideas with people visually by having conversations over arts based activities, as this can elicit ideas that cannot be expressed verbally. Some activities I am considering using include: making clay pinch pots, printmaking, zine making and collage, natural dying using food or garden waste, sewing and weaving- the activity will in part be down to the group's interests.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theory

Utilising Holt-Gimenez and Shattuck's (2011) food regime- food movement framework, I will attempt to categorise the projects I am working in, drawing on literature from these distinct definitions to understand the potential benefits and limitations of each approach, whilst assessing the usefulness of this framework when applied to real-world contexts.

 

The gendered nature of work around food is a key concern, particularly given the broader cultural context of women being more vulnerable to food insecurity whilst being key to maintaining food security for themselves, their families, and their communities. I am therefore interested in how community food work may engender a feminist ethics of care through reconfiguring life-sustaining forms of care such as provision of food as a collective rather than individual responsibility (as is asserted through neoliberalism), and re-ascribe care responsibilities beyond women. I'm also interested in how these spaces hold potential to develop discourses of imagined alternatives to the neoliberal present. I aim to pay particular attention to embodied care, and explore how these spaces hold potential for a feminist ethics of care, abolitionism, food justice, and food sovereignty.

​

Why Food?

In/access to food is a useful prism through which to analyse intersecting inequalities, as well as an opportunity for communities to explore alternatives to the neoliberal norm, such as ideas of collective responisbility and mutual care. Food support in the UK is far from homogenous (i.e., foodbanking), however the diverse range of approaches to addressing the issue of food injustice are under-explored. Issues of power and violence such as access to land, finance and other resources, as well as obstructions from police and state bodies can threaten the sustainability and longevity of (particularly informal) projects. It is therefore useful to highlight the work of these approaches, and understand better how they may go beyond simply 'filling the gap' made by austerity, and hold potential to develop more resilient, caring communities.