ABSTRACT
Food sharing is a longstanding human practice for ensuring access to food and for building social relations to strengthen mutual support systems in small-scale and hunter-gatherer societies. Elsewhere food sharing beyond friends and family has persisted under the radar of the highly globalized and technically complex commercial food system with its sophisticated systems of monetary exchange, distribution and storage. In the early years of the 21st century information and communication technologies (ICT) from websites and apps to social media platforms have, however, increased options for people to share food rapidly and at unprecedented scales. The formation and sustenance of social relations through collective social activities remains a key motivation, but there are also environmental, economic, and political drivers for food sharing. Mapping the digital traces of contemporary food sharing initiatives reveals the diversity of what is shared, the modes of sharing adopted and the goals of those initiatives, many of which align with key tenets of a more sustainable and regenerative food system. Further technical, empirical and conceptual work is required however to establish more concretely the impacts of contemporary food sharing.
