THE POLITICS OF HUNGER
Food is a historically contentious subject – how much does it cost, how much should we eat, how do we produce it, how do we distribute it, how does it affects our health. Climate change, modern technologies, the advent of cheaply produced mass marketed food are all questions in an on going debate about human health, happiness, power and politics.
Doing my research for my new book I became interested in the politics of hunger.
In the USA, as in the UK, the state intervenes to keep people from starving. Nevertheless welfare systems are under strain due lack of money and political will. As a result the UK and the USA have a network of food banks, where food welfare has been taken out of state control and put into the hands of local communities, thereby diminishing the role (and effectively the responsibility) of the state. In the USA new federal legislation has made it harder to claim SNAP benefits (Food Stamps) in some states. People are suffering as a consequence. With stricter work requirements and minimum hours, those who rely entirely or partially to feed their families are being put under stress like never before. Similarly, in the UK, our current politics pushes to deprive people of their state entitlements, taking away their dignity and stigmatising them for their need.
Here is a link to a recent newspaper articles which look at the problem.
On Health and Welfare, Moral Arguments Can Outweigh Economics.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/business/economy/congress-benefits-fairness.html
https://thinkprogress.org/no-food-stamp-fraud-is-not-at-an-all-time-high-b9b3476e86f8/#.gq2fnz5e4
In the late 1800’s when Native Americans were chased off their ancestral lands in Arizona and corralled into land unsuitable for cultivation in New Mexico (similar to apartheid ‘homelands’ in South Africa) they were forced to rely on hand outs and food distribution by the authorities – such as flour and sugar. They made bread, so called Navajo Frybread. This sugary doughey bread with its zero nutrition subsequently became a fixture of the Native American diet and an iconic symbol of their perserverance and pain, even as obesity rates soared. The deprivation of traditional farming methods, and of self sufficiency has had a long term negative effect on the American Indian culture and created forced dependence.
Here is a link to an article in the Smithsonian magazine on frybread
Navajo Long Walk to Bosque Redondo
In London, I was intrigued to see a small, recent display in the British Museum, exploring ‘the relationship between food, power and control of food resources throughout human history’. In the blurb they say ‘more food is being produced than ever before, but hunger remains one of the biggest threats to society today – in 2017 the United Nations estimated that around one in nine people around the world are undernourished.’ The display suggested that this worldwide problem is not caused by technical problems, (ie the issues around production, distribution and management of food) but to issues relating to power politics and economics. The display featured a sculpture titled ‘Anti Social Wild West Weaving’ (a bag made out of barbed wire) referencing the barbed wire fences used by white settlers to fence off the North American grass lands for cattle grazing and farmland, preventing the Native Americans from accessing their ancestral land to harvest traditional foods. This is juxtaposed with an 1952 educational film, termed ‘cowboy propaganda’, lauding the benefits of barbed wire fencing as an aid to turning these prairie lands into open-air’ factories. This transference of land ‘ownership’ highlights the battle for natural resources that continues today between nomadic and native herders and industrial farmers in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and Brazil. Multinational corporations such as Pepsi etc have no qualms about exploiting the world’s resources leading to deforestation and loss of natural habitats for cheap crops such as palm oil whose true cost is to our health and the environment (which is at least in part to blame for the rise in obesity, so a double attack on populations for commercial profit).
This push-me-pull-you idea of dependence/self reliance is at the heart of my story. As her mother becomes increasingly dependent on state welfare and food banks, my protagonist Esther learns about the natural world and the ways of her grandmother and her great grandmother. Forced to rely on the natural environment, she learns to forage for plants to survive. This becomes a metaphor for her growth and movement towards independence.
I am not the first person to want to write about hunger, in its many incarnations!
Dickens Oliver Twist
Knut Hamsen Hunger
Franz Kafka The Hunger Artist
Paul Auster The Art of Hunger
Here is a link to an article on food bank use in the UK.
The conclusions of a report on hunger in USA by FEEDING AMERICA :
89% of hungry households have a yearly income of less than $20,000.
68% of people we already serve plan to obtain food on a regular basis from the Food Bank and our network of partners.
It is a myth that only the homeless need and seek help with food. Research shows that 89% of hungry people live in permanent housing such as a home or an apartment.
57% report receiving SNAP benefits. Of those households, 94% said SNAP DID NOT LAST THE ENTIRE MONTH and must stand in a food line for help with food the rest of the month.
