Consumerism, unsustainable growth, waste and inequalities continue to ail societies across the globe, but creative collectives have been tackling these issues at a grassroots level.
Based on an autoethnographic study about a free food store in Aotearoa New Zealand, this book presents a first-hand account of how a community is organized around surplus food to deal with food poverty, while also helping the reader to see through the complexity that brings the free food store to life.
Examining how alternative economies and relations emerge from these community solutions, the author shows it is possible to think, act and organize differently within and beyond capitalist dynamics.
Recent scholarship has examined the convergence (and divergence) between faith and neoliberalism in the context of charity. Jason Hackworth (2012) posits the notion of ‘religious neoliberalism’, a promotion of individualistic, anti-state and pro-religious views, advancing the idea that religiously delivered charity is a rational and efficient alternative to collectivist state welfare. While religious neoliberalism is largely used by Hackworth to refer to recent political coalitions among ostensibly compatible groups of the American Right – religious conservatives
the nation’s 61,000 emergency food outlets affiliated with the Feeding America network 3 are linked to a house of worship ( Fisher, 2017 ). This binary within the Christian tradition between social justice and charity-based approaches is exemplified by the varied representations of Christian thought in the works of the US scholar Rebecca de Souza (2019) in Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege and Neoliberal Stigma and the British academic and theologian Charles Roding Pemberton (2020) in Bread of Life in Broken Britain: Food Banks, Faith and
in the regulatory frameworks of government policy, bringing alternative philosophies of care into the fray. Here there are two direct possibilities for further research. First is the implication that the interconnections between faith, secularism and neoliberalism are much more fragmented and variegated than has been argued elsewhere, and there is a need to unravel the specific points of resonance where neoliberalism and faith converge to co-produce neoliberal forms, and dissonance where faith and neoliberalism diverge. The second area of research that
Exploring why food aid exists and the deeper causes of food poverty, this book addresses neglected dimensions of traditional food aid and food poverty debates.
It argues that the food aid industry is infused with neoliberal governmentality and shows how food charity upholds Christian ideals and white privilege, maintaining inequalities of class, race, religion and gender. However, it also reveals a sector that is immensely varied, embodying both individualism and mutual aid.
Drawing upon lived experiences, it documents how food sharing amid poverty fosters solidarity and gives rise to alternative modes of food redistribution among communities. By harnessing these alternative ways of being, food aid and communities can be part of movements for economic and racial justice.
At a time of heightened neoliberal globalisation and crisis, welfare state retrenchment and desecularisation of society, amid uniquely European controversies over immigration, integration and religious-based radicalism, this timely book explores the role played by faith-based organisations (FBOs), which are growing in importance in the provision of social services in the European context.
Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the contributions to the volume present original research examples and a pan-European perspective to assess the role of FBOs in combating poverty and various expressions of exclusion and social distress in cities across Europe.
This significant and highly topical volume should become a vital reference source for the burgeoning number of studies that are likely follow and will make essential reading for students and academics in social policy, sociology, geography, politics, urban studies and theology/ religious studies.
