Urban poverty and the role of UK food aid organisations in enabling segregating and transitioning spaces of food access

Abstract

This research examines the role of food aid providers, including their spatial engagement, in seeking to alleviate urban food poverty. Current levels of urban poverty across the UK have resulted in an unprecedented demand for food aid. Yet, urban poverty responsibility increasingly shifts away from policymakers to the third sector. Building on Castilhos and Dolbec’s notion of segregating space and original qualitative research with food aid organisations, we show how social supermarkets emerge as offering a type of transitional space between the segregating spaces of foodbanks and the market spaces of mainstream food retailers. This research contributes to existing literature by establishing the concept of transitional space, an additional type of space that facilitates movement between types of spaces and particularly transitions from the segregating spaces of emergency food aid to more secure spaces of food access. In so doing, this research extends Castilhos and Dolbec’s typology of spaces, enabling a more nuanced depiction of the spatiality of urban food poverty.