Spatiotemporal techniques of those experiencing food insecurity in an area of high urban deprivation in Scotland.

Keywords: Food insecurity; temporality; consumption;
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

Based on ethnographic fieldwork with a Free Food Hub (FFH) in one of Scotland’s most deprived neighbourhoods, the paper explores how community-based initiatives can interrupt the prevailing spatiotemporal norms of its situated context (Dawney, 2013). I propose a two-pronged technique of the FFH which consists of 1) a temporal tactic of experimentation (Chatzidakis et al., 2021; Fois, 2019) and 2) a spatial quality of disruptive hope (Pickerill, 2021). Together, these dynamics offer more transformative visions of responses to imposed adversity.

Time is an unevenly distributed resource. The FFH employs a temporal tactic (a way people manage and experience time) of experimentation (TToE) to momentarily knit broader temporal considerations through the introduction of new foodstuffs.
The TToE happens via a figure of mediation who is related to as trusted and safe. This figure transports food through their mediatory role. This journey expands (and sometimes contracts) users of the hub’s foodscapes. Potential future food procurement and consumption options are subsequently broadened. In its extension, the temporal tactic addresses some aspects of food insecurity, like non-inherited food knowledges and comfortability of novel items. This is seen to effect considerations about futurity, like children’s potential futures.

Disruptive hope is an affective trajectory that works on the spatial possibilities of the FFH. In tandem with experimentation, disruptive hope jolts trajectories of food into broader constellations.
This paper aims to bring to the fore more transformative narratives of those surviving food insecurity, and amplifies how people enact complex coping strategies to negotiate precarious consumption.