The Democratic Politics of Feeding: Care, Agency, and Governance in Urban Food Insecurity

Food insecurity has become a structural condition of urban life in Southern Europe, exposing not only material deprivation but also fractures in recognition, autonomy, and democratic inclusion. As traditional food assistance continues to rely on top-down and paternalistic logics, new local initiatives are experimenting with alternative ways of governing food support that prioritise dignity, participation, and relational wellbeing. This paper investigates three emblematic initiatives in Rome, Barcelona, and Athens — the Emporio della Solidarietà, the Tarjeta Solidaria, and O Allos Anthropos — to show how cities are quietly reshaping the democratic politics of food. Based on 66 in-depth interviews with beneficiaries and coordinators, the study uses the Capability Approach to reconceptualise food insecurity as a deprivation of substantive freedoms — not only the freedom to eat, but to choose, cook, share, and identify with food. This perspective reveals how institutional settings and grassroots practices open or close spaces of agency, voice, and participation for those most exposed to urban inequality. The analysis identifies three distinct governance configurations. Rome’s Emporio reflects a moral-caretaking model rooted in Catholic welfare traditions, blending care with conditionality. Barcelona’s Tarjeta Solidaria embodies a welfare-managerial model, where municipal authorities use digital tools to normalise access to food through everyday consumer practices. Athens’ O Allos Anthropos represents a mutualist-solidarity model, rejecting bureaucratic filtering in favour of horizontal participation and public, collective cooking. Together, these models illustrate divergent but interconnected ways in which food assistance is being reimagined as a democratic practice. Across the three cities, beneficiaries consistently emphasise the transformative power of autonomy and recognition: choosing food, shopping in familiar places, or contributing to communal meals. These acts — often dismissed as mundane — function as powerful forms of agency for individuals navigating poverty, stigma, and institutional distrust. The findings engage directly with debates on democratic governance and policy change. The initiatives analysed here operate as micro-arenas of democratic experimentation, where public authorities, civil society, volunteers, and beneficiaries co-produce new repertoires of solidarity. They renegotiate boundaries between state, market, and community, generating hybrid forms of legitimacy and accountability. Yet these initiatives also reveal structural tensions: dependency on surplus food, precarious resources, and uneven institutional support continue to limit their transformative potential. The paper argues that local food assistance, when viewed through the lens of governance and participation, provides a privileged window into broader shifts in European welfare states. These initiatives act as laboratories where new modes of care, citizenship, and democratic practice are tested from below. To scale up their potential, however, a transition from charity-based logics to rights-based, citizenship-oriented food policies is needed. By analysing food insecurity through the politics of care and urban governance, the article contributes to rethinking how democracy can be enacted in times of crisis — and how everyday practices of solidarity can drive more just, inclusive, and participatory food systems in Southern Europe and beyond.