Food assistance in Portugal: organizational challenges in three different contexts

• Autor(a) principal: Augusto, Fábio Rafael
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/47844
• topic: Food assistance initiatives; Etnography; State; Organizational Challenges

Drawing on an ethnographic research study, developed in three different food assistance initiatives (FAI) operating in Portugal, this article seeks to explore the elements that characterize them and the main organizational challenges they face. Participant observation was carried out in a surplus food redistribution charity, a soup kitchen, and a social supermarket, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with supervisors of these FAI. The study followed an inductive coding strategy and a thematic analysis was developed. The main results point to an appreciation of the initiatives and the role they play, but they also highlight the existence of several challenges, mainly related to: i) difficulties in accessing sources of funding; ii) the absence of an intervening state; and iii) a scarcity of resources that allow a thorough assessment of their activities and services provided, which weakens the public image of these responses. The development of food assistance in Europe has a long history. Over the past few years, this sector has grown significantly. Nowadays, it is possible to identify several realities around emergency food provision. However, this heterogeneity has not been sufficiently explored in the literature. In addition, there are few studies that report on the variety of initiatives that co-exist in Portugal and establish a comparison between them. The current paper intends to overcome this gap by seeking to understand the main models of food assistance operating in the country.