ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the space of the food bank in the UK today, by linking the context of their development to the influence of the state, austerity and welfare reforms with the specific, day to day experiences of food redistribution. It considers relations of both the evolving system of food banking generally and more particularly, the operation of food bank outlets in a critique from the left. The chapter considers the intertwined narrative of food aid and government, considering the ongoing evolution of food banking and the relations of the state in the UK and across the world. There has been minimal interpretation of the form of contemporary charity and the relations which it mediates in line with the spaces it creates. The chapter interrogates the system of food banking and the operational space of the food bank, to unsettle the preconceived assumptions of charity.
