Welfare Convergence, Bureaucracy, and Moral Distancing at the Food Bank

Abstract

This paper seeks to extend geographic thinking on the changing constitution of the UK welfare state, suggesting the need to supplement ideas of the “shadow state” with an analysis of the blurring of the bureaucratic practices through which welfare is now delivered by public, private and third sector providers alike. Focusing on the growing convergence of the bureaucratic practices of benefits officials and food bank organisations, we interrogate the production of moral distance that characterise both. We reveal the ideological values embedded in voucher and referral systems used by many food banks, and the ways in which these systems further stigmatise and exclude people in need of support. Contrasting these practices with those of a variety of “ethical insurgents”, we suggest that food banks are sites of both the further cementing and of challenge to the injustices of Britain's new welfare apparatus.