Community Leadership, Food Security, and Capability in Arkansas

Abstract

Food insecurity is a national issue that affects over 34 million adults and children in the United States. Food security is currently measured through resource-oriented approaches. Some scholars have noted that these measurements fall short and pose that a capability-based approach could provide a fuller portrayal of food insecurity. Community leaders often perceive and address food insecurity in traditional resource-oriented ways through compensation, entitlement, and accommodation. Community leaders with a capability approach (CA) attitude could have a fuller perspective in addressing the root causes of food insecurity. In this study, food insecurity was mapped and assessed through current county-based assessments, then evaluated and mapped through a capability approach lens. Local community leaders (n=20) from four selected case-study counties in Arkansas were interviewed to understand their attitudes and actions regarding food security and then viewed through the lens of CA.

CA food security, using quality of life markers as variables, was shown to add a new perspective on how food security can be identified and understood, adding depth and texture to the assessment of food security. Food insecurity was indicated as the result of clustered disadvantage and capability failure. The outcomes of this study indicated that CA will provide community leaders with a richer, more adequate approach to FS (Nussbaum, 2011). Community leaders emphasized that food insecurity is more often than not an aspect of poverty, which means FS is complexified by other quality-of-life matters. Compassion, a value of human agency and dignity, and an awareness of context ontology are key when addressing FS, distributing resources, and approaching leadership.