Challenges and opportunities for socially just food systems in rural Scotland: an ethnographic exploration into how rurality shapes responses to and lived experiences of food insecurity among parents and carers in north-east Scotland.

A decade of austerity, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a persistent 'cost of living crisis' has constrained many families in Scotland from securing access to sufficient and adequate food for a healthy diet, challenging the realisation of their human right to food. Food insecurity has become an acute social, political and public health concern, particularly amongst families with children. The increasing pressure on household budgets has been keenly felt in rural areas of Scotland, where the cost of maintaining an adequate standard of living is higher while food resources and support services are more dispersed and access to transport is paramount. Yet, food insecurity in rural Scotland has thus far received little attention from academics and policymakers due to its elusive nature in available data, the relative overall affluence of rural areas, and the pastoral imageries that pose rural communities as idyllic, self-sufficient, and mutually supportive, thus masking the social complexities and inequalities in rural communities. A prominent response to food insecurity in Scotland has been the expansion of support by community organisations including food banks, pantries, larders and food sharing networks who source food through donations and surplus from the retail sector. This development raises important questions about the role, capacity and accountability of community food providers in facilitating adequate food access in rural areas and supporting rural families in their ability to mitigate lived experiences of food insecurity. This thesis explores the nexus between rurality, community food provision, and the experiences of low-income parents with young children in relation to three core notions of the human right to food – access, adequacy, and social acceptability. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with community food providers in the rural north-east of Scotland and in-depth qualitative research with fifteen rural parents of young children, this thesis argues that the rural perspective puts into sharp focus both the individualised struggle to access food amidst geographical, financial and social constraints, and the inadequate and precarious nature of community-based food provisioning in relation to the normative requirements of the right to food. Taken together, rurality offers a powerful lens for critiquing the rise and experience of food insecurity among Scottish families, and the capacity of community food providers in advancing the right to food for families in rural Scotland.

Author dc:creator

• Heger, Josephine Renate

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• L. Dinnie and F. Douglas

• Food insecurity
• Rurality
• Community food provision
• Families
• Scotland
• Right to food
• Capabilities approach

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:rgu-repository.worktribe.com:3315968
https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-3315968

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:rgu-repository.worktribe.com:3315968