ABSTRACT
In the context of economic crisis and welfare retrenchment in Spain, food banks have been an emergency solution for those at risk of social exclusion. Food banks have been criticised for playing a significant role in perpetuating dependency and, therefore, exacerbating inequality between those who donate and receive help. However, in Madrid, in the years after the 15M movement grassroots food banks initiatives resignified an old mode of assistance by creating solidarity forms. In this paper, we analyse these grassroots food banks with a particular emphasis on the case of Tetuán. We show how political and interpersonal solidarity is built among grassroots foodbanks’ members. We argue that these banks’ political motto leads to inter-recognition among their participants. Furthermore, through a shared – and permanently reinforced – discourse, food recipients identify the root causes of their excruciating living conditions. Thus, a ‘we-ness’ (defined here as a sense of cohesion and fellowship) is created, which challenges the inequality and stigma reinforced by traditional, and charitable, forms of assistance. In sum, grassroots food banks promote social inclusion as they not only provide aid, but also endorse new venues for solidarity building that challenges the hierarchical relationships, ingrained in traditional forms of charity giving, typical of formal food banks.
Introduction
The 2008s economic crisis had a dramatic impact on unemployment and poverty in Spain, which was only made worse by the severity of neoliberal policies and welfare retrenchment. In this country, before the crisis, the economy was heavily reliant on the construction sector and unwarranted property acquisition took place during the financial bubble (López and Rodríguez 2011). The economic collapse led to a domino effect, resulting in the closure of many small businesses and an escalating rise in unemployment. Evictions in Spain achieved the highest rate in all Europe (Cano Fuentes et al. 2013). As a result, the increase in short-term employment contracts and low wages multiplied the number of ‘working poor’ (Rubery 2011; Sarfati 2013). In 2012 the temporary employment rate in Spain reached 25%, the second highest rate in the EU (Arnal et al. 2013: 284).
In this context, austerity measures dictated by the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Commission, imposed a retrenchment policy on the Spanish welfare state. Before the crisis, hardly was the Spanish welfare state capable of covering basic needs, including housing, unemployment allowance, or guaranteeing a minimum income against poverty. Therefore, in the years that followed the financial crisis, Spain experienced rising structural inequality and sustained income depletion particularly among the working class.
Spain is characterised by the Mediterranean type of welfare state in which the family plays a main role in providing social support (Moreno et al. 2003) and where the redistributive role of the State is limited. Greece, Spain and Portugal generally spend much less on social welfare policies per inhabitant than other European countries (Theborn 2013: 472). These countries have reached the highest rates of income inequality and unemployment in Europe (Theborn 2013: 473).
The weakening of the Spanish welfare state left larger numbers of individuals and families unprotected, further increasing their social exclusion (Laparra and Pérez Eransus 2012; Mari-Klose and Martín Pérez 2015). In 2016 27.9% of the resident population in Spain (12,898,405) were at risk of poverty and/or social exclusion, according to the At-risk-of poverty and social exclusion rate (AROPE, Eurostat). Of these groups, 15% lived in unemployed households (EAPN 2017). Even the access to food, which is considered a basic and fundamental human right, has been severely threatened for these groups (Antentas and Vivas 2014).
The mounting economic hardships experienced by the Spanish working class in recent years has been addressed by third-sector initiatives that typically provide basic means (such as food or clothing) to an increasingly impoverished population. In this respect, the expansion of food banks has been one of the most extensive and publicised forms of hunger-based solutions. Food banks have been an object of interest among scholars in the last decade given their ambiguous status: they provide emergency aid against food insecurity but, at the same time, play a significant role in perpetuating dependency by shifting the focus from fighting for social justice and protecting social rights, to providing a band-aid solution to poverty (Poppendieck 1998; Wekerle 2004; Novik Warshawsky 2010; Riches and Silvasti 2014). Furthermore, the mechanism by which food is usually distributed in food banks leads to promoting the social stigmatisation of those who receive it (Riches 2002; Pérez de Armiño 2014).
But, in the context of the Spanish economic crisis, several local grassroots initiatives have emerged to propose different solutions to collectively address the needs of the population, including food aid. Many of these evolved in the context of the 15M movement, also known as the indignados movement that emerged on 15 May 2011, after a series of demonstrations in almost 50 Spanish cities. Their slogan was ‘We are not commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers,’ a motto that brings about bottom-up struggles for income redistribution and social justice. The movement first occupied the main central square in Madrid (Puerta del Sol), where assemblies took place everyday. After one month, the movement decentralised and organised in different neighbourhoods and villages.
The 15M movement is one among the several anti-austerity initiatives that sprung up between 2011 and 2015 in Europe and the United States (e.g. Occupy Wall Street). Scholars have characterised these phenomena as part of a general wave of mobilisations for democracy and social justice (Errejón Galván 2011; Fraser 2013; Della Porta 2015). According to Nancy Fraser (2013), they represent a ‘triple movement’. Building on Polanyi’s [1944] notion of a pendular ‘double movement’ between disembedded commodification and social protection, the three movements encompass commodification (represented by the market), social protection (represented by the State), and emancipation (represented by civil society). In the struggles against capitalism, civil society has become a fundamental agent acting independently of the state, and sometimes in opposition to it.
The food banks linked to the 15M movement (called in this paper grassroots food banks) are organised on the basis of mutual aid and political action principals. They were founded with the mission to challenge both traditional charity principles, typical of many church organisations, and the corporate discourse characteristic of the Food Bank Foundation – the main provider for food banks in Spain. Grassroots food banks have become active in a series of middle-to-low income neighbourhoods (Carabanchel, Tetuán, San Blas, Vallecas, Villaverde in the city, and Coslada, Alcorcón, or Fuenlabrada in the greater metropolitan area), most of which composed of a significant immigrant population.1
This paper aims to analyse the emergence of grassroots food banks in Spain as a political form of solidarity building that re-signifies, and transcends, the charity approach employed by most food banks, which we term ‘formal food banks’ here. To that end, we ask how Spanish grassroots food banks can be distinguished from other traditional forms of charity by promoting social inclusion on the basis of social empowerment and political awareness. We pay special attention to how political solidarity is constructed within grassroots banks with respect to both the aims of the organisation and its public discourse, as well as the dynamics of social interactions that take place among their members (both activists and recipients).
The first section of this paper discusses the concepts of reciprocity and solidarity and applies them to the phenomenon of food banks. Next, we present our analysis of grassroots food banks in Madrid, with a particular focus on the case of Tetuán. We argue that these banks’ horizontal form of solidarity challenges the unequal relationships sought by formal food banks. This is done in three ways: First, in grassroots food banks formal control of eligibility is replaced by trust. Consequently, food aid is given to all participants who ask for it. Secondly ‘colaboradores’ (the activists, who voluntarily participate in a food bank albeit do not receive food) and ‘recipients’ jointly participate in food gathering in front of supermarkets once a week. They wear the same vests – as a sort of political statement that leads to erasing differences between them. Thirdly, weekly assembly meetings embody the ideological basis of grassroots food banks in which ‘we-ness’ is constructed.
Far from idealising this alternative form of hunger relief, we also acknowledge the tensions that emerge among food bank participants, given the divergent social backgrounds – particularly between activists and recipients – along with the different roles that participants perform within them. Despite these strains, grassroots food banks play an important role for social inclusion by creating new forms of interpersonal collaboration, on the basis of advancing an emancipatory social and political agenda. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of these emerging forms of social and political solidarity in promoting social inclusion in a context of rising social inequalities, along with the retrenchment of the welfare state in the global North.
Reciprocity, solidarity and social inclusion: the case of food banks
The rise in poverty after the economic crisis, in countries of the global North, has raised concerns about the food security of their populations. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations food security ‘exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy and active life’ (FAO 1996). However, there are different forms by which food is provided to those who need it, which also have a disparate impact in terms of advancing (or not) food justice, solidarity building and citizenship rights.
One of the main ways of providing emergency food for those in need is through food banks. As mentioned in the introduction, these organisations have been criticised for mostly providing charity aid to the poor. Simmel ([1908] 1964: 135) observed that, historically, assistance to the poor, whether in the religious form of charity or in some forms of welfare policies, excludes the poor from membership and participation. The poor remains outside the group inasmuch as (s)he is a mere object of the actions of others. Becoming assisted implies a status loss and, particularly in market societies, the person acknowledged as ‘poor’ often endures a stigma, that is, a discrediting attribute. Following Goffman, stigma is a trait ‘embedded in a language of relationships’ 1963: 12). In market societies, the poor are understood as not being capable to or not making sufficient effort to work, to manage themselves (Kahl 2005). Given that poverty is not necessarily a visible mark on the body, many people try to hide their situation by avoiding seeing as being publicly assisted, since the latter draws a symbolic boundary between mainstream society and those being helped – thus becoming the marginalised ‘other’. Food banks actually expose this dyad through the mere action of giving assistance vis-à-vis the symbolic meanings reckoned by those relationships.
The sociology of poverty, as proposed by Simmel, coincides in part with the emblematic innuendos of gift exchange. Following Mauss (1923) the latter both helps create and sustain social ties and bonds by promoting a sense of moral obligation among participants. Gift exchange is a mechanism that binds people to one another and, in a sense, becomes the moral cement of society (Van Oorshoot and Komter 1998: 11f.). Although most forms of gift exchange are based on the obligation to ‘reciprocate’, a problem arises when lack of resources (i.e. money or time) precludes the possibility of mutual giving. Reciprocity, in this case, may work as a principle of exclusion (Van Oorshoot and Komter 1998: 13).
Formal food banks are constructed on a particular kind of gift exchange that does not transcend inequality; rather, it institutionalises it. Van der Horst et al. (2014) have analysed the feeling of recipients who express how compulsory gratitude feels degrading. Other scholars show that people employ a whole range of tactics when facing dire situations, rendering food aid only a last resort. For many, asking for food aid in a food bank is a difficult experience that engenders a stigma and feelings of shame and guilt (Lambie-Mumford and Dowler 2014; Hall 2015).
In contrast to most forms of giving, Malinowski and Sahlins also identified a ‘pure gift’, defined as: ‘an offering for which nothing is given [or expected] in return’ (Malinowski 1922, cf. Sahlins 1965: 146). According to Sahlins this form of generalised reciprocity is related to social closeness. Consequently, as Komter (2005) notes, the kind of reciprocity among a group of people is contingent upon perceived social distance among them. More concretely, the practice of generalised reciprocity is a form of solidarity in which there is always a certain construction of a ‘we-ness’. Solidarity derives from the Latin solidare – to make firm, to combine parts to form a strong whole (Komter 2005: 1). Solidarity relationships, by definition, can neither be based on hierarchical domination nor on market exchange (Pizzorno 2007); they are based upon interpersonal support.
Sholz (2008: 5) differentiates between social solidarity, supported by the bonds of a community united by some shared characteristic; civic solidarity, represented by the obligations of civil society to protect citizens against (welfare policies); and political solidarity, which translates into political activism towards seeking structural social changes. Political solidarity symbolises unity of individuals who have made a commitment [emphasis added] to a struggle for liberation in response to a situation of injustice or oppression (25ff.). Moral commitment is, therefore, the basis of this form of solidarity (38) and it requires ‘individual conscience’, which does not emerge out of a private dialogue but instead is created through a social and political process. In the case of grassroots food banks in Madrid, we argue that these organisations construct a moral context of commitment and civic virtue that becomes the basis for participants’ recognition of each other as equals.
Case studies in other countries, like the United States, show that some food banks have become more than a source of food aid and a survival strategy – they represent a form of resistance against neoliberal policies where networks of mutual aid are reinforced (Mares 2013). In the following sections, we analyse how political solidarity is constructed in grassroots food banks in Spain.
Setting and methods
The analysis presented in this paper is part of a larger project on the role of reciprocity and solidarity networks in promoting social inclusion in Spain in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008.2 Throughout our study, we identified a number of grassroots food banks that are located both in the city of Madrid and in the greater metropolitan area. Most of these organisations are found in poor and lower middle-class neighbourhoods and count on large immigrant populations. They emerged after the 15M movement, are organised independently and not recognised by the Federación Banco de Alimentos – the main food provider to organisations.
During the data collection process, we carried out ethnographic research, consisting in participant observation activities by one of the co-authors of this paper, and that took place in a bank located in the neighbourhood of Tetuán. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants of the grassroots food banks of Villaverde, Coslada, San Blas and the Popular Solidarity Network in Carabanchel, and content analysis of the websites and papers published by these food banks. In order to guarantee confidentiality, the names of the interviewees and references to participants have been changed in this paper.
The food bank of Tetuán (where participant observation took place) was particularly chosen due to its significant activism, as it has become a key political actor in making proposals to the Town Council, along with the diversity of the low-income population it serves. Regular participant observation on this site took place between the months of December 2015 and May 2016, and regular contact with some of the food bank’s members has been maintained ever since. Fieldwork activities initially involved attending the bank’s assemblies that were held every Tuesday, as well as participating in the food collection campaigns that took place in front of large supermarkets every Friday.
The assemblies where participant observation took place varied in composition (some people left when their situation improved and new people arrived), and counted 20–30 participants – most of them representatives of a family unit. Women outnumbered men and the proportion of immigrants was larger than the Spanish population. The study’s analytical approach was supported by thick description throughout the whole research process (Geertz 1973). The latter involved active participant observation, formal and informal conversations (through semi-structured interviews and casual conversations) along with systematic note taking on the interactions that took place among food banks’ participants. The study included ten semi-structured interviews, held in Tetuán, with an equal number of activists and recipients. These interviews served to clarify, and triangulate, the information collected through the observations and ongoing conversations held with the food bank’s participants (around 30). In addition, periodic – mostly informal – conversations took place between the fieldworker and study participants. This was complemented by ten semi-structured interviews conducted with recipients of the grassroots food banks of Coslada, Villaverde, Carabanchel (Popular Solidarity Network) and San Blas. The materials collected in the grassroots food banks were complemented with content analysis of the Federación Banco de Alimentos’ website (FESBAL). The FESBAL is a private organisation that defines itself as a non-profit organisation and which channels the largest share of food aid in Spain to formal food banks.
All the grassroots food banks located in Madrid present a similar form of organisation. People get together once or twice a week: once for the assembly meeting (taking place weekly), and a second time for food collection activities in front of large supermarkets – in some grassroots food banks food collection is every week in others every two weeks or once a month. Food-gathering efforts always take place in the neighbourhood where the grassroots banks are located. Thus, after time, most people living in the area are familiar with the grassroots food banks.
The Tetuán food bank – where participant observation took place – is found on the north part of Madrid, in a neighbourhood that is drastically represented by two extremes: one part being very rich, and the other one being inhabited by a low-income population that lives in old and poorly constructed buildings. This latter neighbourhood has the second highest percentage of immigrants in Madrid. The two areas (rich and poor) live with their backs to each other, as the population of one does not have any relations to the other.
The grassroots food bank in this neighbourhood was created in 2012 in connection with the local Platform against Evictions, in order to provide food aid for people who had been evicted. For some time, this food bank stored the food in one of the local neighbourhood associations. However, in 2014, and after a municipal order was issued against the association for storing food without sanitary control, the food bank moved to a social centre. This centre was funded in 2008 squatting an abandoned building. It was initially used for activities that included a community radio station, a barter market, political and social talks, and a playground for children. Upon the ignition of the 15M movement, the social centre began changing its composition and activities as it welcomed the assemblies sponsored by the local Platform against Eviction, Invisibles3 and the grassroots food bank, all of which ended up using the squat installations as their main headquarters.
The fact that all the different initiatives, linked to the 15M, gathered in the social centre brought a change in the social and demographic composition of those who participated in their activities. If during its first years (2008 onwards) these were mainly young white Spanish people with a libertarian ideology, after the 15M movement (approximately since 2012), middle and old age neighbours (some of whom had no previous political experience) along with large numbers of immigrants from different countries, began using this space by joining several community-based projects. Since then the squat has continued being opened to the neighbourhood, thus becoming a legitimate grassroots social centre that plays a crucial community role.
Formal food banks and grassroots initiatives
In Spain, food aid is mainly channelled through the Federación Banco de Alimentos (Food Bank Federation, FESBAL), and the Cred Cross. The latter is the second main food aid distributor in Spain that provides direct aid to recipients and delivers staples to other food banks. The Federación was created in 1996 and is the main distributor of food aid to non-profit organisations – the large majority of which are confessional. It receives funds from the largest companies in Spain (including the oil industry, banks, telecommunications and agro-food companies) all of which receive tax deductions as a result of their contributions. It is also supported by the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (European Commission). The Federación boasts of having the same efficiency as a large corporation, based on ‘business criteria’ (www.fesbal.org). It works as a monopoly of food aid and has copyrighted the term ‘banco de alimentos’ [food bank]. Its efforts to control food charity became clear when the Federation legally sued the Tetuán grassroots bank for using the term ‘food bank’. Indeed, research has shown that the Federación has systematically taken legal action against any grassroots food bank that organises outside their control (Gascón and Montagut 2014).
Almost 80% of the food bank organisations existing in Madrid (most of which are recipients from FESBAL) are religious groups, the majority of them being Catholic. Yet, in recent years, there has been an increase of non-Catholic religious organisations, (Cabrera Cabrera et al. 2016). These organisations work in coordination with local social services. In order to become a recipient of food aid, applicants need to fulfil a series of conditions: 1) they need to have a legal status in the country (i.e. possess a National Spanish ID or a resident permit); 2) they must be registered as a resident in the area; 3) they need to present a referral from a social worker that recommends the person for food aid. These requirements, as stipulated by the European Commission, actually exclude a large number of people in need of food assistance.
The set-up of grassroots food banks is quite different. First, they are not funded by any formal public or private entity. Second, by being independent from both the FESBAL and the Red Cross, grassroots food banks bypass two important access barriers established by the former: (1) citizenship (or legal status) requirements, and (2) a means-test policy. With respect to the first condition, this difference is evident by the fact that some participants, who were undocumented immigrants, arrived at the Tetuán food bank after being denied food by other NGOs – which typically claim being unable to serve them as they need to justify aid on the basis of proving legal status. With regards to the second requirement set up by formal food banks, the Tetuán grassroots food bank embraces the principle that everyone, who, is a neighbourhood resident, is eligible for food aid regardless of legal status. Finally, with respect to the third condition, grassroots food banks do not require any means-testing proof. Anyone who asks for food aid is believed to be in need for it.
There is one requirement, however, that everybody must meet in order to become a rightful member of the grassroots food bank: to participate in both the assemblies and the regular food collection efforts. This condition is closely allied to the idea of building interpersonal solidarity on the basis of expressing commitment to the food bank’s larger political causes (Sholz 2008). The Tetuán grassroots food bank’s website slogans clearly illustrate this point: ‘Que se acabe la caridad y que empiece la justicia’ [May charity come to an end and justice begin]. It also asks for ‘solidaridad, apoyo mutuo, autogestión’ [solidarity, mutual aid, self-management] as key elements of its guiding principles.
The grassroots food bank as a social movement: constructing political solidarity by challenging inequality
In the first stages of the grassroots food banks connected to the 15M movement, food was exclusively provided by neighbourhood residents, most of whom voluntarily donated products directly to grassroots food banks. Arguably this did not completely challenge a kind of sweet charity, paraphrasing Poppendieck (1998), that is typical of hunger relief efforts. ‘Donating food’ represents a compassionate gesture on the part of good willing individuals who, however, do not aim at challenging the unequal distribution and access to food.
Through time, however, the way in which neighbours approached the Tetuán donation cart placed in front of the supermarkets – along with the things they said – implied that giving staples to the 15M food bank meant something different from donating food to either a formal food bank or a church. Thus, frequently-used expressions like ‘fuerza’, ‘ánimo en la lucha’ or ‘salud’, [roughly translated as ‘strength’, ‘stay strong in the fight’] denote a language that is closer to comradeship than to charity.
As noted earlier, regular participation in the food bank’s assembly, along with working in the food collection shifts, are the two mandatory conditions for receiving a food pack. Undoubtedly, these rules are closely linked with the principle of eliciting personal commitment among food receivers, towards building political solidarity among all participants. The requirement to attend the regular assemblies is aimed to avoid ‘passive’ reception among beneficiaries, as well as to encourage participation and a sense of autonomy and empowerment. This was clearly summarised as follows by one of the Tetuán food bank activists:
… to reject assistencialism as this keeps a hierarchical bond between the donor and the receiver … . It is the [needy] families themselves who participate in the assemblies, because the assembly is the subject of decision-making. It is the families themselves who cover food collection shifts … . It is the families themselves because they are perfectly able to organize themselves. They are people who have suffered, they have to work in order to get through, but they can do it. (Ignacio, food bank activist)
The grassroots movement wants to break with the popular representation in which the poor is given a passive and dependent role, as if (s)he was incapable of organising for his/her rights (Herrera-Pineda and Pereda Olarte 2017). It is precisely that passive reception of the actions of others that, according to Simmel, built a symbolic frontier between the ‘poor’ and the rest of society.
The stigma associated to receiving food aid has been acknowledged by other food-aid organisations. For instance, Caritas (one of the major Catholic organisations of social action in Spain) has lately changed its traditional food-giving practices to a system of vouchers by which the person gets access to products in supermarkets – thus seemingly avoiding stigmatisation.4 However, in this model, food recipients are not asked about their opinions or preferences on the matter. Furthermore, vouchers imitate a market model of consumption and social relations, leading to individuation.5 Finally, formal food banks (those dependent on FESBAL and the Red Cross that includes Caritas) have no space for collective decision-making. In fact, decisions are made either by the donors or professionals working at those organisations (i.e. social workers, educators, psychologists).
By contrast, grassroots food banks aim at building a horizontal model of participation by having the ‘assembly’ as the key social milieu where all decision-making concerning food gathering and distribution takes place. It is at the regular assemblies where short- and long-term political initiatives are discussed by all participants, including food recipients. The importance of the assembly as a place of encounter and decision-making is emphasised by many recipients in the interviews.
I could go to Cáritas and just receive food, but I like to meet people, I like to talk to them, to see what we can do. I like feeling useful. (Jennifer, food bank recipient)
The aspiration to full equality sought by the members of grassroots food banks is not without challenges. Participation does start from an unequal place, as there exists a clear distinction between activists, that is people who attend the assembly and participate in food collection activities – albeit do not need to receive food aid – and the receivers, who must participate in those activities in order to get food. This could, in principle, represent an obstacle for the bank’s solidarity-building efforts. However, these challenges are overcome in various ways.
First, food bank participants emphasise the structural causes of the social exclusion, and poverty, experienced by food receivers. Based on the logic of denunciation (Boltanski et al. 1984), grassroots food banks place the blame for one’s situation on the perverse impact of post-industrial and neoliberal policies that has left ‘out of the system’ large segments of the middle and the working class in Spain. In this way, the experience of dire poverty is not seen as an individual problem but as a social one that needs to be addressed by everyone, recipients and activists, including those who may not need food aid.
Furthermore, by building a language based on food rights and social solidarity – e.g. everyone could be without a job and go hungry at one point or another – there is no need to share the same experience in order to become ‘equals’ in the construction of shared political projects, a characteristic that differentiates social and political solidarity (Sholz 2008). The difficult experience of the recipient, who has gone through economic hardship, provides the content for the movement as the experience of the oppressed (Sholz 2008: 34). Ultimately, community-based undertakings on food access and distribution involve political emancipation in as much as it problematises the notions of ‘assistance’ and ‘aid’, by emphasising the principles of food justice on the basis of equal entitlement to rights. In the words of one activist:
People who come here have suffered all kinds of humiliations because of their situation. And in that process they lose the memory of having rights. And here we insist that food is a right, housing is a right. They cannot allow other people to look down at them just because they don’t have a job and other people do. (Ana, food bank activist)
Public denunciation of the structural causes of social exclusion ultimately encourages a collective ‘we-ness’ that appeals to social justice and, throughout this process, it aims at restoring dignity and self-esteem to those in need. Both activists and recipients, who had been active in the Tetuan food bank for some time, reported that this organisation had become a place where individuals in need could overcome their feelings of guilt, shame and embarrassment in a positive and constructive way.
As noted earlier, both activists and recipients participate in the assemblies and in food collection efforts by wearing the same vests. In this way, not only those in need avoid the shame of being identified as food recipients but also makes the grassroots food bank visible to neighbourhood residents (particularly shoppers). The vests have the inscription ‘15M Food Bank’ so that people can identify them and differentiate them from other food banks. One of the food bank recipients, Javier, told us about the typical conversations he often had with other participants:
A lot of people say: ‘oh, I don’t know … I think I can’t be there standing in front of a supermarket.’ And I say to them, ‘hey, you are wearing a vest. Nobody knows whether you are the person affected or whether you are an activist.’ In that way you break up with the feeling of shame. (Javier, food bank recipient)
According to Javier, it is important to promote a sense of shared homogeneity between food bank members, so that food donors will be unable to tell the difference between those who are receiving food and those who are volunteering for the project. Nevertheless, it is equally important not to conceal the hunger that many people are currently experiencing in Spain. In Javier’s words: ‘As I say to by-passers, we are not just asking for aid, we are giving visibility to a problem and turning it into a collective claim.’
Finally, all participants at the grassroots food banks join forces towards working for larger political movements, so recipients become ‘members’ of such causes and not just passive subjects. In the words of a recipient of the Carabanchel Popular Solidarity Network:
For us it is very important to join the struggles in the neighbourhood. For example, we have joined the protest against the closure of the local Public Health Centre. And in that way we give back to the neighbours the support we receive from them. (Gerardo, food bank recipient)
In the act of ‘giving back’ to their neighbourhood, the gift received (food) is returned in the form of food recipients’ commitment to collective demands raised at the local political level. In this vein, participants of the Tetuán food bank have also joined other social movements in the area, and organised rallies and demonstrations in favour of a multicultural and inclusive neighbourhood. Last, the Tetuán food bank has become an active member at the Table Against Social Exclusion – a neighbourhood initiative of Invisibles and the grassroots food bank. The Table regularly meets either in the public square or in the local town council. Many groups are part of it, including social movements, associations, NGOs and local social-service organisations, whose main purpose is to find solutions to the growing social exclusion experienced by vulnerable groups in Madrid. The organisations created in connection with the 15M movement (the grassroots food bank, Invisibles and the Platform for the People Affected by Mortgages) are the only ones in which those in need actively participate in meetings. Contrary to this participatory mode of operation, charity NGOs and government aid groups, on the other hand, send their professionals to speak on behalf of those in need.
Grassroots food banks building of solidarity is not at the margins of public policies. They have all signed the Platform for the Letter Against Hunger, which has brought together around 40 organisations to demand that Regional governments, along with local and State governments, institute policy changes to ensure food security along with putting an end to charity and the resulting stigmatisation that marks those in need of food aid (González Parada 2015). This has given way to a Legislative Initiative for the Madrid Regional Parliament, which is to be discussed in June 2018.
Solidarity at the micro-level: overcoming challenges by learning by experience
In the grassroots banks, solidarity is an ongoing and interpersonal construction that is shaped via day-to-day encounters. Undoubtedly, this is not an easy task. As noted earlier, the fact that activists are not required to attend either the assemblies or the food collections – as much as the second do – may put a certain strain on their interactions. However, this was not a key issue at the assembly meetings the research team had a chance to participate in.
Admittedly, the virtuous subject par excellence is the colaborador. As an activist, (s)he is considered the one having political conscience – a quality that is not always assumed among food beneficiaries. Indeed, some activists behaved as if their role was to raise political awareness in the minds of food recipients. Still, most of the time, the Tetuán food bank (along with the other ones we interviewed – Coslada, Villaverde, Carabanchel, San Blas) offered a warm, welcoming space, in which political struggle went hand in hand with demonstrations of empathy, interpersonal connectedness and even humour. In fact, mutual aid erupted spontaneously at the Tetuán food bank during dramatic moments. This was especially clear when one of the food recipients died, during a cold winter, and quickly, a successful fundraising event was put together by the assembly in order to repatriate his corpse to the Dominican Republic. Here crowd funding was led namely by food recipients all of whom were very active during the whole process and organised popular meals and different activities to collect the money.
An article entitled ‘Stories of (losing) hope’ was published in the 15M magazine. The article, written by two doctors that were collaborating with the grassroots food bank, provided statistics on how adverse living conditions could affect one’s ability to survive and ask for help. The text remarked that hope was lost when a person had little to eat and could rarely indulge in products like meat or fish. Hope was also lost when an individual could not keep his/her home adequately heated. Hope, however, could be restored when people were able to defend themselves collectively by organising solidarity-building projects (Banco de alimentos 15M Tetuán 2016). As this case indicates, the kind of solidarity promoted by grassroots food banks aims at making food recipients feel that they are not alone, on the basis of constructing a shared sense of collective wellbeing. For some of the food bank participants, this is even more important than getting any type of food aid:
It is not just for the food that I receive. At the end of the day, I live on my own, and I have no children. I can manage with little food. Rather, it is for being here, in this group, and to work together [with] mutual aid, [with] solidarity. When you have been without a job for a long time, and do not have enough money to pay for the rent, for transportation, for … you get into an emotional state … Some days you … you have so much stress, tension … you start to lose sleep over … and you get to a moment in which you just want to die, and you think ‘I wish I wouldn’t get up tomorrow.’ And then I found this group: a place for debate, a place for proposals … And perhaps this doesn’t solve the immediate problem of paying my rent. But, when I am here, when we go together to a demo … I feel … I don’t feel like so shit. So it helps you to feel … more solid, to feel that you can. (Alejandro, food bank recipient)
The goals of the grassroots food banks, along with other community initiatives, go beyond providing aid for basic needs. As explained in this paper, the political solidarity instilled by this type of movements aims at reinforcing a space for consciousness-raising in which individual problems are transformed into a common struggle for liberation against oppression (Sholz 2008; Fraser 2013). In this process, the micro interactions taking place between different types of food bank participants help restore hope among those who feel that the system has failed them.
Furthermore, in the context of the constitution of new local governments after 2015, some of these initiatives, like the grassroots food banks of Tetuán, have played a fundamental role in a public dialogue concerning social exclusion and the required policies to address it.
Conclusions
In the present context of rising poverty and inequality in Spain, large sectors of the population have turned to social services and other forms of aid. Food banks have multiplied as one, among many, of the emergency solutions that have sprung in recent years. Formal food banks’ charity motto – built on the basis of unequal social bonds – somehow contradicts the principles of food justice on the basis of social and political empowerment. Instead, the grassroots food banks explored in this paper constitute a form of political solidarity that challenges the unequal relationship instituted by charity principles of most formal food banks. As discussed in previous pages, this is achieved in several ways.
Firstly, the grassroots food banks’ public, and political, stand against hunger has turned it into an issue of social justice, amid a critical framework that opposes capitalism as disembedded market relations. Food (like housing) is then conceived as a right that should be provided to all human beings; therefore, assuring access to food ultimately becomes a token of political activism towards demanding basic social and political rights.
Secondly, food bank recipients learn that they do not need to feel either ashamed or grateful for what they receive. In fact, not only are they not represented as passive recipients, but in the activities of food gathering and decision-making processes they are part of lead them to becoming empowered and de-stigmatised. Ultimately, they do become active actors in the collective construction of ‘we-ness’. Finally, in order to become a food recipient, it is key (and expected) for participants to become active members in the food banks’ larger campaigns and in other local struggles for social justice. This is related to the principle of personal commitment that is central to building political solidarity.
In contrast to formal food banks, where only professionals (or donors) make decisions, recipients in grassroots initiatives participate in collective decision-making. Throughout this process, they empower themselves as citizens regardless of whether or not they have legal status or financial means. This is key to overcoming social exclusion on the basis of promoting a sort of in situ solidarity. As explained in this paper, individuals at risk of social exclusion, who joined grassroots food banks, were able to restore a sense of dignity and enhance their wellbeing. This embodied sense of collective belonging is connected to the fact that they shared their problems and helped one another while becoming active doers in the food bank’s initiatives. Food recipients were not passive but active members of a collective cause. In the end, these participatory model leads to a process of inter-recognition in which a shared sense of belonging is socially and politically constructed.
We are well aware that, in their beginnings, grassroots food banks, created collectively as an emergency response, did not solve the complex problem of food sovereignty and food justice in the medium and long run. Nevertheless, these bottom-up initiatives do play a key role in constructing neighbourhood-based solidarity by both transcending material needs, and creating a collective sense of inclusion as an alternative model to market relationships. The ‘we-ness’ that grassroots initiatives actively help build plays a fundamental role in promoting social belonging as part of a larger social justice movement. This is an important legacy of the 15M.
As time goes by, some of these initiatives have been able to engage local governments in a public dialogue regarding the right to food. They have thus become a key agent in the struggle for the recognition of this and other human rights. Their particular significance owes much, however, to the processes by which political solidarity has been constructed at the micro-level, allowing people in situations of poverty to become ‘full members’ of a community.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
María Gómez Garrido (BA History, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; PhD Social and Political Sciences, European University Institute) is Lecturer in Sociology at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. Her research focuses on social inequality, misrecognition and stigma and on the social processes that allow for the formation of social and political identities. She has also done research on comparative European social policies.
Maria Antònia Carbonero Gamundí is PhD in Geography (1989) and in Political and Social Science (1996). She is full professor at the Balearic Islands University. Her research is mainly in sociology of gender, social exclusion and social policy. Some of her publications about gender include the co-edition of the book Entre la familia y el trabajo: conflictos, relaciones y políticas públicas de género en Europa y América Latina (Homo Sapiens 2007) the chapter “¿Hacia una ciudadanía inclusiva de género?” in Indagaciones sobre la ciudadanía. Transformaciones en la era global (Icaria 2007) the book Nancy Fraser. Dilemas de la justicia en el siglo XXI. Género y globalización (Universitat de les Illes Balears, 2011) of which she is co-editor. In relation to the subject of social exclusion and social policy, a chapter in Crisis and Social Fracture in Europe (La Caixa, Welfare Projects, 2012).
Anahi Viladrich is a sociologist and medical anthropologist originally from Argentina, she holds a B.A./M.A. in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires, a Master’s Degree in Sociology and a PhD in Sociomedical Sciences (with concentration in Medical Anthropology) from Columbia University, awarded with Distinction and the Marisa de Castro Benton Award, in 2003. An expert on international migration, Viladrich’s current research involves the study of food practices and societal responses to food insecurity—supported by novel grassroots initiatives—in Spain and the U.S. Viladrich is currently Full Professor in the Department of Sociology (with a courtesy appointment in the Anthropology Department) at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY). She is also affiliate with the Department of Sociology at the Graduate Center and the School of Public Health of CUNY.
Footnotes
There are around 27 grassroots food banks located in Madrid and the greater metropolitan area.
We first mapped a series of new civil society projects to better understand the process of how different forms of solidarity emerge and are constructed. A key selection criterion was that the projects had among their participants people at risk of social exclusion.
Invisibles is a social movement, created in the same context and in this neighbourhood, that demands social rights for people at risk of social exclusion and organises accompaniment to social services.
This decision has been carried out by several of Caritas territorial offices. See, for instance, La opinión de Zamora, 2 January 2016; El día de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 19 December 2013.
The chef Massimo Bottura explained his Milan project of refettorio with these words: ‘I thought: “we know how to create hospitality. Restoring the dignity of people is not to throw them a spoon of kitchen soup. Let’s serve them as if they were in a restaurant”’. This is another example of how attempts to avoid stigmatisation and restore the ‘dignity’ of the people who receive some form of food aid reproduce a consumer model. Massimo Bottura. Las obsesiones de un cocinero, El país semanal, N° 2170, p. 46.