Standard North American food work : unveiling the invisibilized labour of low-income families through food bank work

Social policy and public discourse about family life are often rooted in the Standard North American Family (SNAF) ideal, which envisions a heterosexual, nuclear family with a breadwinning father and a homemaking mother, thus obscuring and marginalizing diverse family structures (Griffith and Smith, 1987; Smith, 1993). Charitable food assistance programs (CFAPs), such as food banks, operate under this SNAF assumption, overlooking the emotional and logistical burdens placed on marginalised families that fall outside of SNAF. This dissertation, grounded in in-depth interviews with 31 low-income parents in Canada and employing grounded theory and institutional ethnography, introduces the concept of the “Standard North American Food Work” (SNA-Foodwork), which extends Smith’s SNAF concept to include class-based and racially influenced expectations around food-related tasks in the household. It also introduces “food bank work” (FBW), highlighting the cognitive, relational, and emotional (CRE) work in three distinct stages: planning schedules and transportation, navigating the on-site experience, and managing, sorting, and preparing the acquired food. This dissertation contributes to the scholarly conversation on "work" by broadening the understanding of foodwork and how the SNAF ideological code marginalizes non-traditional family structures. By focusing on the lived experiences of low-income, immigrant, and single-parent families, the study reveals how the SNAF model fails to recognize the extensive work involved in securing food and managing households in challenging economic and social conditions.