#RightsNotCharity: exploring the institutionalisation and increasing corporatisation of emergency food provision

Lunedì 23 maggio, dalle 16:15 alle 18:00, nell'Aula B1 di Palazzo Carità via Paoli 15  nell'ambito dei seminari dei corsi di laurea in Scienze per la Pace e del Centro Interdisciplinare Scienze per la Pace (CISP), si terrà il seminario "#RightsNotCharity: exploring the institutionalisation and increasing corporatisation of emergency food provision". Relatrice sarà la Dottoressa Kayleigh Garthwaite.

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Abstract

For the past decade in the UK, emergency food provision has grown, and has become a normalised and increasingly institutionalised 'response' to poverty and insecurity; as we've seen in a North American context over a much longer time period. Now more than ever, emergency food is playing a key role in responding to the needs of those most vulnerable to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. Whilst these responses are currently much-needed, the idea of charitable food as an "emergency' must be re-framed; especially important in a (post) COVID-19 context, where the entrenchment and corporatisation of food aid are becoming more critical and prominent. In this talk, I reflect on how ethnographic work on food banks in the UK which began in a Trussell Trust foodbank in Stockton-on-Tees, North East England in 2013, has collectively developed into a growing network of non-governmental organisations, national networks, grassroots activists, and academics. The Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice began to emerge in 2018 from relationships built at Trans-Atlantic conferences and meetings, resulting in a growing shared analysis of, and reaction to, the increased use of private philanthropy and transnational corporate food banking as a response to ‘rich world’ hunger and poverty. This #RightsNotCharity alliance seeks to complement and amplify the ongoing work of powerful grassroots networks and movements at national, regional, and global levels that are addressing food systems, public health inequalities, poverty reduction and social security. Currently, we are interested in beginning to develop a collective analysis and understanding of the rise of charitable food and corporate solutions to food security, and the implications on human rights and state social protection systems across Europe.

Kayleigh Garthwaite is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham, UK. Her research interests focus on poverty and inequality, social security, and health, specifically investigating charitable food provision and food insecurity. Kayleigh is a co-founder of the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice, a group of non-governmental organisations, national networks, grassroots activists, and scholars developing a shared analysis of (and reaction to) the increased institutionalisation and corporate involvement of charitable food in rich but unequal countries such as the UK, the US, and Canada. She is also a trustee of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) in the UK