You are what you eat: Exploring the relationship between women, food, and incarceration

Abstract

Building on Thomas Ugelvik’s (2011) work, this article seeks to capture the food-related experiences and challenges faced by provincially and federally incarcerated women in Canada. This research shows that criminalized women engage with food in different ways than Ugelvik’s sample of men did while in prison. We consider how prison fare operates as a form of status degradation and how the less eligibility principle allows for incarcerated populations to be fed low-quality foods. This is followed by a discussion of how the ways in which women share and trade food demonstrates an ethic of care and a strategy of coping and resistance. Mealtime resistance via the storing, sharing, and trading of food exemplifies how women negotiate power in the carceral context; this use of individual agency, albeit limited, fosters togetherness and solidarity, making prison time temporarily more comfortable and manageable. By showcasing participants’ first-hand accounts of prison fare, we explore how women’s relationships with food shape their material experiences of incarceration.