Murky moralities: performing markets in a charitable food aid organization

Thirza Andriessen, Oona Morrow and Hilje Van der Horst

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2022, vol. 15, issue 3, 293-309

Abstract: This paper explores how competing moralities are brought together in the performance of a market for charitable food aid. Markets, rather than functioning as neutral technologies for bringing together supply and demand, are thoroughly moral phenomena. In markets, calculative devices are crucial for realizing exchange, by facilitating mutual agreement on price and quality. However, such practices of calculation can violate moralities of charity. This paper examines what happens when market practices and moralities are introduced in charitable settings. This is done through an in-depth case study of a food aid organization in the Netherlands that is organized as a supermarket, and part of a broader trend in re-organizing the provision of emergency food aid through the introduction of practices and technologies that shape a market. The case study shows how the socio-technical arrangements which organize market exchange, such as price labels and budget cards, are entangled with neoliberal moralities encouraging financial responsibility. At the same time, the findings show that moralities associated with charity are also present, which can lead to contestations over ‘good’ market performances. Such shifting moral judgements require participants to navigate conflicting moralities to be recognized as deserving recipients of aid.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17530350.2022.2041462 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jculte:v:15:y:2022:i:3:p:293-309

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJCE20

DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2022.2041462

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Cultural Economy is currently edited by Michael Pryke, Joe Deville, Tony Bennett, Liz McFall and Melinda Cooper

More articles in Journal of Cultural Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().