Residents encouraged researchers and workers to adopt a self-critical perspective, to consider the ways in which we are part of the system that maintains food insecurity for certain individuals and groups. This is a posture of self-reflexivity – to see how established practices, which seem natural and comfortable to us, need to change. We are all part of a system that perpetuates food insecurity.
Sourcing Healthy Options
"I keep passing, passing, and they say, “Why are you coming?” I say, “Because first, I don't use canned food. I don't like canned foods…”
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Exclusion
Residents described disappointment and upset about how some food banks operate. Dynamics of exclusion (even unintentional) provoke envy and competition among those in need.
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Challenging the Status Quo
Taking a wide-angle view of food insecurity, residents and workers repeatedly emphasized that food insecurity is a symptom of the interrelated and underlying issues of unaffordable housing, under- and unemployment, and low income. Furthermore, although emergency food distribution programs may be a necessity, they function to perpetuate the status quo.
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