Navigating food insecurity and environmental sustainability on a low income: A case study of Sheffield mothers

紧急粮食--特别是粮食银行--在2010年代的快速增长(重新)确立了英国家庭粮食不安全(HFI)是一个严重的社会、学术和政策问题。HFI捕捉了人们的经历，如影响他们吃的食物的数量或质量，对食物供应持续的焦虑，以及以社会不能接受的方式获取食物(例如：慈善食物)。定量研究将HFI与糟糕的饮食、身心健康问题、更差的教育结果和社会排斥联系在一起。其规模是巨大的：在截至2022年4月的六个月里，15.5%的英国家庭报告了肾综合征出血热，几乎是2019-2020年(8%)的两倍。新冠肺炎疫情随后既带来并加深了金融压力，目前生活成本的急剧上涨又加剧了这种压力。与此同时，对饮食环境可持续性的实际、政治和社会关切也加剧了，并在大流行早期突出了粮食短缺。为了更好地理解环境可持续性和HFI的相关主题，该项目将研究过去、现在和未来三个时间尺度上的低收入食品供应。现有的研究主要是横断面的，因此我们对HFI在短期内如何变化以及环境可持续性因素在日常生活中所起的作用知之甚少(目前，RQ1)。人们的生活史，特别是童年经历(过去，RQ2)对可持续性考虑的相关性和人们目前的HFI经历的影响也很少被理解，尽管它可能解释为什么一些低收入群体没有报告HFI。同时，未来的期望(未来，RQ3)是未知的：这个问题将探索参与者对食物供应、HFI和可持续消费实践的未来期望。这些主题将通过对谢菲尔德格雷伍德的15个月低收入母亲的女权主义定性研究来检验。随着时间的推移，探索这些主题将提供对过去、现在和未来妇女食物供应的丰富详细的洞察，同时也强调连续性和变化的动态。对母亲的研究反映了妇女通常承担的计划吃饭、购物和做饭的责任；同时，妇女也倾向于领导以环境为导向的家庭行为(例如：回收)。女权主义者审查和引起人们对女性经历的关注(往往被忽视)的动机进一步加强了这一方法。为了从多个角度比较低收入粮食供应，妇女网络的男性和女性成员也将接受采访，这是一种新的方法。当地的支持服务代表也将接受采访，以提供他们的意见和背景信息。结合深入访谈和人种学元素，寻求更好地了解低收入食品供应和环境可持续实践的相关主题，以及它们的健康、社会和更广泛的后果。该项目的发现将具有学术以外的兴趣和价值：在一线服务机构、国家和地方政府、政策制定者、活动家、记者和包括参与者在内的社区中。该项目的定性方法将产生对食品供应的详细理解，这意味着调查结果将导致对HFI和环境可持续性实践的更好理解。随后，在其他地理位置和更广泛的群体中应用该项目设计的研究可以指导更长期的研究议程。研究结果将有助于在福利、卫生、教育、社会包容等领域的前线服务中借鉴良好做法，鼓励利益相关者和跨服务机构共同努力，并指导国家和地方政策。

The rapid growth of emergency food - particularly foodbanks - in the 2010s (re)established UK household food insecurity (HFI) as a serious social, academic and policy concern. HFI captures people's experiences of compromising the amount or quality of food they eat, anxiety about food supplies lasting, and sourcing food in socially unacceptable ways (eg: charitable food). Quantitative research has linked HFI with poor diets, physical and mental health problems, worse educational outcomes, and social exclusion. Its scale is significant: in the six months to April 2022, 15.5% of UK households reported HFI, nearly double the figure in 2019-20 (8%). The Covid-19 pandemic then both introduced and deepened financial pressures that are currently being compounded by sharply rising living costs. In parallel, practical, political, and social concerns about dietary environmental sustainability also intensified and highlighted food shortages early in the pandemic. Despite their connections, these topics have rarely been explored together.To better understand the related topics of environmental sustainability and HFI, this project will examine low-income food provisioning over three timescales: past, present, and future. Existing research is mainly cross-sectional, so we know little about how HFI changes over the short term, and the role played by environmental sustainability considerations in the everyday (present, RQ1). The influence of people's life histories, particularly childhood experiences (past, RQ2) on both the relevance of sustainability considerations and people's current HFI experiences, is also poorly understood despite its potential to explain why some low-income groups do not report HFI. In parallel, future expectations (future, RQ3) are unknown: this question will explore participants' future expectations of food provisioning, HFI, and sustainable consumption practices.These themes will be examined through a 15-month feminist qualitative study of 15 low-income mothers in 'Greywood', Sheffield. Exploring these themes over time will offer richly detailed insights into women's food provisioning over the past, present, and future while also highlighting dynamics of continuity and change. Researching with mothers reflects the responsibility typically taken by women to plan meals, shop, and cook; in parallel, women also tend to lead on environmentally-oriented domestic behaviours (eg: recycling). Feminist motivations to examine and draw attention to (often overlooked) women's experiences further reinforce this approach. To compare low-income food provisioning from a range of perspectives, male and female members of women's networks will also be interviewed, a novel approach. Local support service representatives will also be interviewed to offer their views and provide background information. Combining in-depth interviews with ethnographic elements seeks to better understand the related topics of low-income food provisioning and environmental sustainability practices, and their health, social, and wider consequences.The project's findings will be of interest and value beyond academia: among frontline services, national and local government, policy-makers, activists, journalists, and the community, including participants. The detailed understandings of food provisioning that will be generated by the project's qualitative approach means the findings will lead to improved understandings of HFI and environmental sustainability practices. Later, research applying the project's design in other geographical locations and among wider groups could guide a longer-term research agenda. The findings will be valuable to inform good practice among frontline services across settings including welfare, health, education, social inclusion, encouraging joint working between stakeholders and across services, and guiding national and local policy.