Investigating connectivity in the urban food landscapes of migrant women facing food insecurity in Washington, DC

Abstract

The survival strategies of migrant women living in urban poverty are embedded in urban food landscapes (‘foodscapes’) characterized by dynamic social relationships and mobility. Relying on interviews with 31 migrant women in Washington, DC, this paper traces the socio-spatial conditions of their urban foodscapes to show that urban environments inhabited by low-income migrants are dynamic, stretching across multiple neighborhoods as they move throughout the city with social networks to obtain affordable, quality, and culturally appropriate food. Investigating these foodscapes demonstrates the relational nature of food provisioning strategies thus providing a critique of simplistic explanations of hunger that treat food insecure residents as static, ignorant, and individual economic actors. These explanations risk producing equally simplistic and inefficient approaches to addressing food insecurity such as increasing mainstream consumption opportunities in so-called food deserts or focusing on nutrition education and individual choice without considering residents’ dynamic urban experiences. As a result, this paper argues that programmatic responses to insecure urban foodscapes should be developed that foster social and physical connectivity while better addressing structural causes of hunger.