The Depoliticisation of Deprivation: Food Insecurity in Aotearoa New Zealand

food insecurity;depoliticisation;Aotearoa;New Zealand;neoliberal;vulnerability;Q methodology

Reynolds, David Oro ; Campbell, Hugh ; Mirosa, Miranda

University of Otago

关键词: food insecurity;    depoliticisation;    Aotearoa;    New Zealand;    neoliberal;    vulnerability;    Q methodology;   

Others  :  https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/bitstream/10523/6860/1/ReynoldsDavidO2016MA.pdf

美国|英语

来源: Otago University Research Archive

【 摘 要 】

Empirical research into the nature of food insecurity in Aotearoa New Zealand and other rich liberal democracies leaves little room for dispute: this has emerged as a hugely significant problem over the last 35 years. This thesis examines how we think about food insecurity as a problem in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is significant because the particular way that a problem is thought about or constructed has strong implications for both the real and imagined possibilities for action oriented to its resolution. I ask ;;how does food insecurity come to be in Aotearoa New Zealand?’ to enable an investigation involving several approaches. I summarise empirical research concerned with food insecurity in rich liberal democracies and Aotearoa New Zealand specifically. I observe that regularities in data concerning who suffers food insecurity in rich liberal democracies indicates a structural influence and argue that the relevant structures are those of the neoliberal political economy in this country, instituted following the ;;neoliberal turn’ of the 1980s. I extend this structural theorisation of the significance of the neoliberal turn to food insecurity in Aotearoa New Zealand by suggesting that the social-political context of Aotearoa New Zealand, constituted in citizen subjectivities, is influenced by the same neoliberal political rationality. Specifically, I suggest that food insecurity is constructed as a depoliticised issue, an aspect of the wider depoliticisation of deprivation produced by neoliberal governmentality. Positioning the operation of the neoliberal political economy as supported by a particular social-political situation is one explanation for how food insecurity comes to be in Aotearoa New Zealand.I execute a small-scale investigation of this theorisation using Q methodology to examine the subject positions of people professionally familiar with food insecurity – academic researchers, charity responders and policy makers. Findings include that most subjectivities in this group do not align with the theorised neoliberal citizen subjectivity and that some are amenable to elements of it. This highlights the complexity of both subjectivities and neoliberal influence on them. The findings prompt an elaboration of the concept of depoliticisation as a useful theoretical tool.