FOOD INSECURITY AND PARTICIPATION

Abstract

The Nova Scotia Participatory Food Costing Project uses participatory action research to collect data on the cost and affordability of food and involves those who are directly affected by food insecurity. More than a decade of this work has also yielded qualitative evaluation data that illustrates the project participants' experience with the project and with food (in)security more generally. The data are characterized by ample evidence of participants' perceived powerlessness related to government and social structures. At the same time, that data indicate that playing a role in participatory processes seems to have served as an empowering experience for the participants. We highlight some of the findings here and situate them within critical literature on citizens' discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• food security
• food insecurity
• participatory research
• critical discourse analysis
• inequities

Notes

1. It is of note that many contemporary analyses of discourse rely on the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Those works treat discourse as similar to ideology, or a value system, and as encompassing everything from ways of thinking and constructing meaning to social practices, knowledge, subjectivities, and power relations. CDA tradition sees discourse more as a communicative instrument of ideological positions; as ‘different ways of structuring knowledge and social practice’ (Fairclough, 1992, p. 3), or ‘systems of thought composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs, and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak’ (Lessa, 2006, p. 285).

2. This despite studies repeatedly showing that hunger and malnutrition are products of inadequate distribution, rather than insufficient production (Albritton, 2009; Lawrence, Lyons, & Wallington, 2010).

Additional information

Irena Knezevic was a postdoctoral fellow with FoodARC, Mount Saint Vincent University at the time of writing.

Heather Hunter was a Research Associate with FoodARC, Mount Saint Vincent at the time of writing.

Cynthia Watt was the Project Coordinator for the Participatory Food Costing Project, Mount Saint Vincent University at the time of writing.

Patricia Williams (author to whom correspondence should be addressed) is an Associate Professor of Applied Human Nutrition and Canada Research Chair in Food Security and Policy Change at Mount Saint Vincent University. She is also the Director of FoodARC, Food Action Research Centre.

Barbara Anderson is a Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics at Acadia University.