Invisible and Insecure in Rural America: Cultivating Dignity in Local Food Security Initiatives

Abstract

The United States’ neoliberal approach to governance promotes structural inequalities that shape individuals’ sense of dignity. We employ qualitative in-depth interviews and ethnographic field study to examine dignity construction via daily experiences with food access and foodways. Situating our study within a rural Oklahoma community with high food insecurity rates, we ask: How does structural inequality impact individuals’ daily experiences with dignity construction? How is a sense of dignity influenced by daily experiences with food access and foodways within the context of community-based food initiatives? We address structural inequality and the resulting social hierarchy of food security, focusing on three overlapping social arenas—relational, individual, and institutional. Relational interactions in food access spaces promote dignity when interactions are characterized by symmetrical social encounters. Dignity in the individual arena centers on foodways, cultural or familial traditions, and role-taking as a food provider. In the institutional arena, dignity is influenced by structures and operational approaches. Our research contributes to literatures informing policies and strategies employed by community-led, rights-based food aid systems in advanced capitalist nations. Efforts prioritize and promote human dignity, despite neoliberal, advanced capitalist governments’ failure to address structural inequalities as a root cause of food insecurity.