Abstract

The dominant, academic story about the food bank says that it is as a de-politicising charity organisation. There is, however, a danger to telling a single story. It consists of mis-presenting the way in which food bank organisations understand their own activities and goals, and not recognising the work they actually do, and the possible normative justification for it. To question a dominant story one needs an elaborated counter story which I cannot provide here and now. What I hope to do is more programmatic in nature. The plan here is to point at a questionable, basic element of the dominant story, that is: its critique on the charity approach, and then sketch a different story that also can be heard at the food bank. This will lead me to a reflection on the difference between the dominant ‘rights based approach’ and a ‘dignity approach’ that I reconstruct and derive from empirical research, and to an attempt to normatively justify the form of emergency food aid that the food bank provides. The distribution of food, donated by companies and private individuals and to be prepared at home, at some 530 food banks that are united in the ‘Association of Dutch Food Banks’, forms the empirical frame of reference in which I argue.