A Social Innovation: Addressing Relative Food Insecurity and Social Exclusion
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ORIGINAL PAPER
A Social Innovation: Addressing Relative Food Insecurity and Social Exclusion Lucas Meijs1 • Femida Handy2
•
Frans-Joseph Simons1 • Lonneke Roza1
International Society for Third-Sector Research 2019
Abstract Food insecurity manifests itself on a continuum, and we note that it can range from absolute food insecurity to relative food insecurity, especially in the context of affluent countries. We focus on one such relative food insecurity that manifests itself when Dutch children cannot afford the culturally appropriate foods to participate birthday celebrations in primary schools, which is a longestablished local custom. The inability of children to celebrate their birthdays in this public manner leads to school absenteeism, stigmatization, and social exclusion. This case study analyzes an intervention undertaken by Jarige Job, a Dutch nonprofit, that recognized and addressed this hidden social problem by using existing networks and infrastructures of national foodbanks. It provides insight into how a unique intervention of providing birthday boxes has become a successful social innovation that not only combats this relative food insecurity but is also able to address and mitigate the challenges of moral and cognitive legitimacy. Keywords Relative food insecurity Social innovation Legitimacy social exclusion Children Nonprofit
& Femida Handy [email protected] 1
Department Business-Society Management of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2
School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Introduction In recent years, there has been an upsurge in the demand for food assistance across high-income countries (Barrett and Maxwell 2005; Mabli et al. 2010; Daponte and Bade 2006; Riches 2002; Gentilini 2013). Several high-income western countries, including the Netherlands, report rates of food insecurity, varying between 5% and 25% (Neter et al. 2014), with the concomitant rise of foodbanks that seek to alleviate food deprivation (Riches and Silvasti 2014). Foodbanks are a ubiquitous alternative or complement to relief interventions undertaken by government (Poppendieck 1999) and overtime have become very professional (Gentilini 2013). Food insecurity, however, is a complex issue in which traditional foodbanks play an important but limited role as providers of relief interventions. We extend this rather narrow interpretation of food insecurity as addressed by foodbanks from providing enough caloric intake into a broader concept of what (poor) households need to survive in dignity. We propose that food insecurity arising from poverty can lead to many other food-related insecurities and consequences. This includes social exclusion, when individuals cannot participate in the social and cultural norms in their communities, such as not having the necessary food to celebrate religious or other cultural holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.). In the Netherlands, an important cultural celebration is birthda
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