The moral maze of foodbank use
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The foodbank symbolises a changing landscape of social insecurity and welfare conditionality. Attending to decision making within the foodbank system, this article argues that foodbanks, and their referral-system creates a bureaucratic ‘moral maze’ identifying people as ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ of help. Maintaining a moral distance, organised religious foodbanks are reliant upon a complex outsourcing of moral decisions and walk a fine balance between supply (donations) and demand (use). Within this article, we argue that the foodbank landscape is akin to navigating a moral maze, and that this creates, and justifies decisions of deservingness.
Keywords
- bureaucracy, decision making, foodbank, neoliberalism, welfare reform
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 383-399 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Journal of Poverty and Social Justice |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 15 Jun 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2020 |
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