Written by alisekirtley

Engaging people in conversations about food

The Political Party’s podcast episode #192 called Deborah Mattison Returns explores the research she did for her book Beyond The Red Wall. She tells Matte Forde how few people knew of many key political figures other than Johnson, and so he asks whether part of her mission was to engage people more in politics via the act of asking questions. This question felt relevant to the Locavore project also. Not only do I know close to nothing about how people feel about food and food growing in Folkestone (or anywhere!), I like the idea that simply by asking people questions, I can learn with them about what might be possible.

Cherry agreed this information would be a valuable resource, but that we have to tread carefully:
“There are ppl in folkestone who love talking about food and what they eat and why, and people who take offence at why you ask. If you say, for example, ‘do you have healthy veg in your diet?’ it could be perceived that you actually asking ‘do you feed your kids McDonalds? Are you a terrible mum?’

As with so many keys societal issues, there is the conundrum of how to engage with those most affected by [food security]. I know from my days on the Bigger Boat project, and working in care homes, that most of the time, solutions come from the people – and in those cases the carers – experiencing the problems. It’s not for me to tell someone how to deal with something I know nothing about. But then again, it’s often people privileged enough not to be experiencing the problem that have the luxury of the time, money, resources, etc, to actually act on the solution. For example, the recent Cooperation Town movement doesn’t seem to be spearheaded and driven by those feeling food poverty the harshest (I’m judging this purely on a webinar with some of the founders, I may be totally wrong on this one). Then again, Cherry reminded me that a lot of people who have found their way out of food poverty then go on to do things like Cooperation Town… ie people that have recovered from the darkest place and then want to try and change that little slice of life such that fewer people had to experience the situations they did.

We agreed that it would be best to try starting conversations with a network of people already in touch with those most affected by food poverty, including:

We then discussed how best to capture the conversations, and whether asking people if I can (video/audio) record them would put them off, along with consent forms for sharing data.
It was agreed that we didn’t know the answer right now, and that the question of ‘how best do we have and record these conversations?’ could actually become part of the conversation itself! So I’m going to do a couple, starting with people I know and people that connect with me on Nextdoor and see where it takes me. I’ll ask people about how they would feel signing a consent form or being recorded.

Finally, we debated whether mentioning Custom right from the off would be off-putting because coming from an organisation sounds loaded, yet not mentioning it feels like we’re hiding it. In the end we went for mentioning it as me doing research with Custom FL.

The starting point…

I’m doing some research with Custom Food Lab. We’re exploring ways that Folkestone can become more self sufficient with food and food growing. I’d love to chat to you about your thoughts on this?

For example, on Nextdoor:

Dear Neighbours, 
I’m doing some research with Custom Food Lab. We’re exploring ways that Folkestone can become more self sufficient with food and food growing. 
This is something I’ve only just started being interested in, and I’m looking forward to learning from the opinions and experiences of as many other people as possible! 
If you’d be up for a chat, I’d love to hear from you. 
Please comment or DM me here and we can arrange a whatsApp / Skype / zoom call 🙂 
Wish you a lovely rest of day
All the best,
Alise

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