Faith based organizations as actors in the charity economy : A case study of food assistance in Finland

Abstract

In recent decades, charitable food assistance has grown into a prevalent way to respond to hunger as a manifestation of severe or absolute poverty that persists even in the affluent European Welfare States. By severe poverty we refer to an economic condition of life, which leaves an individual or family not only physically hungry but also in a situation where the basic need for nutritious healthy food is unmet to such a degree that it seriously violates the chance of sustaining socially accepted membership of society. Throughout Europe, nongovernmental organizations, and faith-based actors in particular, have taken up the task of alleviating the immediate food needs of the most deprived people by delivering food stuffs that originate to a great extent from food markets as surplus donated by food corporations and retailers. As an affluent Nordic Welfare State with more than two decades of history in this modern food charity, Finland provides an illustrative context to explore faith-based organizations as actors in the charity economy which is an alternative distribution system where unwanted consumer goods are redistributed from those who have a surplus to those who are in need.