“In this book, I argue that stigmatizing narratives that circulate around the hungry serve to uphold the unjust food system and forestall systemic change. Therefore, to bring about broader systemic change, we first need to shift the narratives around what causes hunger and who the hungry are” (4), Rebecca de Souza writes in the Introduction to Feeding the Other—an in-depth ethnographic study of two food pantries in Duluth, MN. De Souza highlights two pantries, Chum Food Shelf and Ruby’s Pantry, bringing to life the paradoxical challenges faced by both individuals and charities. She reimagines how food pantries can be part of the solution to liberate individuals from hunger in the current neoliberal era.
De Souza’s book invites readers to wrestle with and understand the sticky web tying stigma (of poverty and hunger), neoliberalism, and intersectionality together through an explanation of these concepts and their connection to power. Organizational...
University of California Press