Reimagining Young People’s Participation in Food Circuits of Care

Phipps, Harriet and Spurling, Nicola and Hui, Allison (2025) Reimagining Young People’s Participation in Food Circuits of Care. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

This thesis explores young people’s lived experiences of food insecurity. Building upon Sodero’s (2019) concept of vital mobilities, the thesis views food as a vital mobility with complex circuits of care. Through a multi-method, participatory approach, it builds upon this literature to expand the meaning of food circuits of care and applies this meaning to investigate how young people experience food insecurity and participate within food systems. By investigating food as a vital mobility with young people as the entry point to the analysis, the thesis highlights the fragilities of circuits of care and works to explore how these fragilities are formed, experienced and adapted by young people. The thesis is based on an empirical study of the services and members of a community centre in the north-west of the UK. Using a multi-method, creative and participatory approach, the project works alongside young people that attend the community centre’s youth group, to understand their lived experiences of food insecurity, consider the social constructions that they encounter, and evaluate their agency within systems that affect them. Through embedding its novel conceptualisation of circuits of care, the thesis contributes to food insecurity practice by exploring how principals of care can be integrated with a participatory methodology. Through this methodology, the project creates opportunities for young people’s empowerment within local food systems and circuits. An exploration of food circuits of care identifies young people as a diverse group with complex and volatile lives. The thesis argues that these complexities and the individual responsibilities associated with food security result in the vital mobilities of food being more fragile and susceptible to inequalities than Sodero’s blood vital mobilities. These inequalities are analysed through the definition and distribution of vital tactics: methods used by young people to create their own agency and access food outside of ineffective formal structures. Alongside its contributions to mobilities and food insecurity practice, through its discussions around disruption and food insecurity, the thesis creates opportunities for discussion of young people’s participation in wider policies relating to climate change. Specifically, the thesis creates a manifesto for young people’s participation in food circuits of care that is robust and resilient to the threats that climate change and other disruptions pose to young people’s (participation in) food futures.