Food Charity and the Psychologisation of Poverty

This book offers a unique discursive perspective on the rapid rise of food charity and how food poverty has emerged as a symptom of deeper problems requiring psychological intervention.Christian Möller explores how new anti-poverty programmes and advice cultures are psychologising poverty by locating causes and solutions inside the mind rather than in the outside world, and considers the political stakes in citizens becoming subjects of charity. Drawing extensively on Foucault alongside feminist and critical theory, the book puts forward an overdue challenge to the pervasive effects of a psychology, which limits our thinking about poverty with promises of development, happiness and resilience, but leaves social inequalities intact. Möller argues for returning critical psychology to praxis to address social injustices and inequalities. Challenging common assumptions about food charity as a symptom of a retreating welfare state, he shows how power is exercised and knowledge is produced in these spaces of care and community. Also featuring direct applications of concepts to the real-world example of food banks, the book helps set out practical guidance for students and researchers designing empirical projects in critical psychology.Drawing on original research and interviews with managers and volunteers, this text is fascinating reading for students and academics interested in critical psychology, and the relationship between charity, poverty and social exclusion.

"A necessary and multi-perspective analysis of contemporary food banks in the UK. A mandatory reading for all academic scholars and public activists interested in food poverty in a broader cultural context."Stefan Selke, Furtwangen University, Germany"Through his critical and discursive approach, Chris Möller invites us to "think differently" about food charity. His incisive critique of our everyday assumptions about the psychology of both food poverty and food charity provides a rigorous theoretical analysis that is grounded in and illustrated by examples of his own research. Chris’s own reflections on his research experience, woven through his accounts of data collection, importantly personalise the political issues he raises. This book will be an important and timely resource for critical scholars of food poverty and food charity in psychology, sociology and related disciplines."Viv Burr, University of Huddersfield, UK"In this book, Chris Möller explains exceptionally well why a political and discursive approach is needed to consider food banks in terms of the ‘psychologisation’ of poverty, the spectacle of food banks and why food banks are actually part of a problem of neoliberalism societies. Read it and then consider political practice and forms of social action to create social change in the world."Alex Bridger, University of Huddersfield, UK, 'A necessary and multi-perspective analysis of contemporary food banks in the UK. A mandatory reading for all academic scholars and public activists interested in food poverty in a broader cultural context.'Stefan Selke, Furtwangen University, Germany'Through his critical and discursive approach, Chris Möller invites us to "think differently" about food charity. His incisive critique of our everyday assumptions about the psychology of both food poverty and food charity provides a rigorous theoretical analysis that is grounded in and illustrated by examples of his own research. Chris’s own reflections on his research experience, woven through his accounts of data collection, importantly personalise the political issues he raises. This book will be an important and timely resource for critical scholars of food poverty and food charity in psychology, sociology and related disciplines.'Viv Burr, University of Huddersfield, UK'In this book, Chris Möller explains exceptionally well why a political and discursive approach is needed to consider food banks in terms of the "psychologisation" of poverty, the spectacle of food banks and why food banks are actually part of a problem of neoliberal societies. Read it and then consider political practice and forms of social action to create social change in the world.'Alex Bridger, University of Huddersfield, UK

Christian Möller is a Research Fellow in the School of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde, UK. He also teaches Critical Social Psychology as an Associate Lecturer at The Open University, UK. His main research interests are in critical discourse analysis, social and health inequalities and charity work.