Perspectives on responsibility in practice as revealed through food provisioning offers for rough sleepers

Abstract

The discursive rhetoric of responsibility has become associated with a neo-liberal ‘responsibilisation’ agenda, typified by policy approaches to rough sleeping in England. I draw on feminist ethics of care literature to provide a critical discussion of responsibility. Informed by original ethnographic research I explore how responsibility is practised and negotiated between rough sleepers and local actors through on-site food provisioning activities in the city of Newcastle in northeast England. A distinction and tension was identified between voluntary organisations’ ‘taking care of’ rough sleepers’ food needs, and commissioned service providers and rough sleepers who articulated a ‘caring with’ approach; both practices highlighted a complex interplay between care and responsibilisation framings. The research revealed how these discourses interacted to inform the implementation and responsiveness of local voluntary and policy actors, to the extent that responsibilisation was made possible by the purposeful rendering of collective and situated care practices.