A Photovoice study of food (in)security, unemployment, and the discursive-material dialectic

Using a discursive-material framework, this study explored the complex ways in which food security and food insecurity are expressed and experienced by people who are unemployed. A Photovoice study of 21 individuals from across the social class spectrum revealed the way jobless individuals navigate the discursive-material dialectic regarding their food (in)security. In the first theme, food insecurity as figure, resource-deprived participants had a tendency to focus on the materiality of food with regard to survival. In the second theme, the blurring of figure/ground in the midst of food (in)security, participants with tenuous resources blurred the materiality of food through discourse that obscured their needs. In the third theme, food security as ground, resource secure participants discursively relegated the materiality of food to the background. Implications are discussed.