Troubling the Waters: Toward a Foucaultian Analysis of Collegiate "Food Insecurity"

• In Event: 35.080 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Five - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 35.080-4 - Critical Issues in Higher Education: Supporting Students With Disability, Mental Health Challenges, and Food Insecurity

Abstract

With the rise in visibility of collegiate “food insecurity” as a national issue has come a concomitant set of acceptable approaches to defining the “problem” and “solutions.” These responses, often driven by non-profit foundations and built upon federal food standards, include campus food pantries, administrative specialists, and the nomenclature of “food insecure” placed on particular students. Philosopher Michel Foucault’s ideas of discourse, governmentality, and subjectivity provide the conceptual tools to re-problemetize an important issue within the context of a modernist neo-liberal postsecondary educational enterprise. This poster session, prelude to large-scale, multi-site qualitative study, expands alternate possibilities for approaching how student hunger in higher education is considered.

Authors

• Nathan Alleman, Baylor University

• Cara Cliburn Allen, Baylor University

• Sarah Madsen, Baylor University