The moral maze of foodbank use

Beck, DJ; Gwilym, H

Abstract

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.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 16, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jun 15, 2020
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jun 25, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 15, 2021
• Journal: Journal of Poverty and Social Justice
• Print ISSN: 1759-8273
• Electronic ISSN: 1759-8281
• Publisher: Policy Press
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 383-399
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1332/175982720X15905998909942
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1332/175982720X15905998909942
• Related Public URLs: http://policypress.co.uk/journals/journal-of-poverty-and-social-justice
• Additional Information: Access Information : This is a post-peer-review, pre-copy edited version of an article published in Journal of Poverty and Social Justice. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Beck, D., & Gwilym, H. (2020). The moral maze of foodbank use. Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1332/175982720X15905998909942