Prevalence, Severity and Impact of Household Food Insecurity: A Serious Public Health Issue. Background Paper

Conceptualizing food security for Aboriginal people in Canada

Should Canadian health promoters support a food stamp-style program to address food insecurity?

Determinants of healthy eating among low-income Canadians

The unfreedom of being other: Canadian lone mothers’ experiences of poverty and ‘life on the cheque’

“Eating isn’t just swallowing food”: Food practices in the context of social class trajectory

Magazine articles and self-improvement books tell us that our food choices serve as bold statements about who we are as individuals. Acquired Tastes reveals that they say more about where we come from and who we would like to be. Interviews with Canadian families in both rural and urban settings reveal that age, gender, social class, ethnicity, health concerns, food availability, and political and moral concerns shape the meanings that families attach to food. They also influence how parents and teens respond to discourses on health, beauty, and the environment, a finding with profound implications for public health campaigns.

Acquired Tastes: Why Families Eat the Way They Do

Provoking urgent questions about the politics of health in the twenty-first century, this collection interrogates how neoliberal approaches to governance frame health and risk in ways that promote individual responsibility and the implications of such framings for the well-being of the collective. The essays examine a range of important issues, including childhood obesity, genetic testing, HPV vaccination, Aboriginal health, pandemic preparedness, environmental health, disability policy, aging, contingent work, and women’s access to social services.  With specific attention to the Canadian context, contributors reveal how neoliberal practices and policies shape the health experiences of individuals, disadvantaged groups, and communities by cultivating self-discipline while further exposing to harm the lives and bodies of those already marginalized in consumer society. Building on the theoretical conceptualizations of power and government of French philosopher Michel Foucault, the case studies extend our understanding of the effects of neoliberal practices and policies in relation to social class, gender, racialized identity, colonization, and ability, and provide insight into how health-related discourse creates new requirements for citizenship and forms of social stratification.   A timely intervention in the field of health studies, Neoliberal Governance and Health establishes the need for critical interdisciplinary scholarship to counter the individualizing and marginalizing tendencies of health-related policy, practice and research.

Neoliberal Governance and Health: Duties, Risks, and Vulnerabilities

Elaine Power has been teaching HLTH 101, The Social Determinants of Health, to hundreds of undergraduate students each year. Students learn that income, income inequality, education, racism, colonialism, and political decisions are more important determinants of health than diet, exercise and other lifestyle factors.

Her research on food insecurity—inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints—and its impacts on health, have led her to advocate for an unconditional basic income that is adequate to meet basic human needs. 

Dr. Power uses qualitative research methods and critical social theory to investigate food practices, especially in relation to income and social class. She currently holds a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to explore the potentials and limitations of community food programs, such as community gardens, hot meal programs, and food banks, to reduce food insecurity.

Dr. Power is a founding member of the Canadian Association for Food Studies, and co-founder of the Kingston Action Group for a Basic Income Guarantee.

Food Insecurity

food banks

basic income

Social Determinants of Health

hunger in Canada

experiences of poverty

Guaranteed Annual Income

family food practices

feeding the family

gender & food

income & food

poverty & food

poverty & health

Google Scholar Profile

Queen's University Profile

It's time to close Canada's food banks

Basic income could end food insecurity

Should Ontario consider a Basic Income Guarantee?

Basic Income Guarantee Public Consultations

Food insecurity and the promise of a basic income guarantee

The province’s basic income pilot project and income security review are promising, but the need to increase social assistance rates is urgent

Basic income guarantee would lessen poverty

Corporate tax breaks are not the answer to hunger in Canada

Health 101 Basics: A community wake-up call

Why food charity is not enough

Food insecurity and the promise of a Basic Income Guarantee

"Come and live in my shoes": Food access and social isolation for people living in poverty in Gananoque and Leeds & The Thousand Islands

Building food security through a basic income guarantee

The social construction of food insecurity in Canada

Making Zero Hunger with Basic Income

Using Basic Income to address food insecurity

The social construction of food insecurity: A Canadian Perspective

The promise and the perils of Basic Income

Let's talk BIG: A Guaranteed Annual Income for All

The potential impact of a Basic Income Guarantee on community economic development

Basic Income: Dismantling systemic barriers

The case for Basic Income

Eliminating food insecurity with a Basic Income Guarantee

How can Canadian municipalities ensure the right to food?

Associate Professor 

Let's Talk BIG - A Basic Income Guarantee for All was lead by Elaine Power, Ph.D. in Fenelon Falls on September 21, 2016.

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