Communication, carcerality, and neoliberal stigma: the case of hunger and food assistance in the United States

ABSTRACT

Drawing on three strains of critical theory – Foucauldian biopolitics, critical race theory, and the work of sociologist Loic Wacquant – I argue that neoliberal stigma is foundational to the design of the food (assistance) system. Neoliberal stigma is constituted in the discursive practices of shame, suspicion, and surveillance, which are communicative and carceral technologies used to discipline poor and racialized communities in their efforts to manage hunger and poverty. These communicative technologies are rooted in anti-poor, racist, and carceral logics and are deployed against Black and Brown bodies negatively impacting health and social wellbeing. Drawing on the voices of people with lived experiences of hunger, I demonstrate the mundane and exceptional ways in which shame, suspicion, and surveillance emerge in discursive practices surrounding food assistance and how these practices enjoin food assistance and carcerality into a ‘single organizational contraption.’ The analysis ends with three broad interventions required to disrupt neoliberal stigma amid racist violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Hunger
• stigma
• race
• CRT
• governmentality
• neoliberalism
• welfare

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Some interview data presented in this article are reprinted with permission from de Souza, R. (2019) Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries. MIT Press. Further methodological details can also be found in the book.

2 Over the last few years, the acronym BIPOC has become a preferred term compared to the historical ‘people of color’ (POC) terminology. However, like any attempt to label people, the term BIPOC is also coarse. Accepting the limitations of language, I use several terms interchangeably (i.e., BIPOC, people of color, Black and Brown, and racialized groups/ bodies) when referring to groups racialized by white supremacy.