Food and Politics

Maggie Dickinson is a Cultural Anthropologist whose current research is on food and welfare policy in New York City. She spent two years working in a Food Pantry helping people apply for SNAP benefits and talking to clients about their work histories, experiences with the welfare office, and the things that made it difficult for them to eat well.  Her research is broadly concerned with political economy, food politics, social movements and inequality in the urban U.S.  She has worked with anti-hunger advocates and activists on campaigns to expand access to food stamps in New York and nationally.   She has published on food as a democratic tactic at Occupy Wall Street, welfare policy, gender, race, and urban space.  She is a doctoral candidate in the Anthropology Program at the CUNY Graduate Center.