Review: Powerful Stigmas and Opening Up Possibilities for Reclaiming Food Sovereignty: A Review of Rebecca de Souza’s Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries

Abstract

Book Review| December 15 2020 Review: Powerful Stigmas and Opening Up Possibilities for Reclaiming Food Sovereignty: A Review of Rebecca de Souza’s Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries, by Rebecca de Souza. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2019. 312 pages. $90.00 cloth. $30.00 paperback. Megan Schraedley Megan Schraedley Megan Schraedley is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Correspondence to: Megan Schraedley, Department of Communication and Media, 700 S. High Street, West Chester, PA 19382, USA. Email: mschraedle@wcupa.edu. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Departures in Critical Qualitative Research (2020) 9 (4): 118–120. https://doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2020.9.4.118 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Megan Schraedley; Review: Powerful Stigmas and Opening Up Possibilities for Reclaiming Food Sovereignty: A Review of Rebecca de Souza’s Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 15 December 2020; 9 (4): 118–120. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2020.9.4.118 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentDepartures in Critical Qualitative Research Search “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... You do not currently have access to this content.