There is increased emphasis on adopting positive health and aging policy goals for heterogeneous ... more There is increased emphasis on adopting positive health and aging policy goals for heterogeneous older populations, and recognition of the role that participatory research approaches can play in supporting their implementation. However, questions remain about how to represent the marginalized experiences of some older populations within such processes. With a focus on older Irish ethnic Travelers and older homeless adults as two vulnerable populations in Ireland, this article presents and critically discusses a participatory approach developed to integrate marginalized older adult perspectives on positive health and aging in a multistakeholder research and development process. The qualitative methodology is first detailed, incorporating methods that harness collaboratively derived views and individual narratives (e.g., focus groups; consultation forums; in-depth interviews). Critical reflections on research implementation and specific considerations relevant to these populations are...
Focusing on older Irish Travellers and older homeless people (OTOH) as two marginalised sub-secti... more Focusing on older Irish Travellers and older homeless people (OTOH) as two marginalised sub-sections of the older population, this paper investigates life-course and structural forms of material disadvantage, and its implications for positive health and accessing community care in older age. With growing interest in strengthening home care structures for older people, it is critical to interrogate the relevance of these structures for those who experience environmental uncertainty in later life, and possess significant trajectories of disadvantage. The analysis draws on 50 life-course interviews with OTOH aged between 50-72 years. The findings illustrate significant life-course experiences of material and multi-faceted forms of disadvantage, including stigma and discrimination, with implications across health and social lives. Housing deprivation was a multi-factorial player, causing certain physical illnesses, hindering some health treatments, and contributing to precarious conditi...
Older people experiencing homelessness and older Irish Travellers (OTOH) are both over-represente... more Older people experiencing homelessness and older Irish Travellers (OTOH) are both over-represented in the cohort who use acute health services. Impending health care reform in Ireland will be based on primary care models, meaning home and community care will be, for the first time, underpinned by a regulatory framework. For these reasons, this study aims to gain a nuanced understanding of how OTOH, as marginalised older people, might be best served by new home care and community care models. Using a qualitative, voice-led approach, a life course and structural determinants lens is employed to probe the health conditions, experiences and expectations of OTOH, as well as their perceptions and values around the concept of ‘home’. The research processes and outcomes of one of five phases of research are presented in this paper: participant-led research. In this phase, five OTOH were trained and assisted to complete a short research project which fed into the goals of the wider study. Em...
Most people in EU are food secure, but there are socio economic groups that struggle with poverty... more Most people in EU are food secure, but there are socio economic groups that struggle with poverty and health, making them vulnerable to food insecurity and in recent years there has been an increase in people needing food assistance in Europe. As the literature portrays, the position of food assistance in the food system is a contested one. On the one hand, critics describe it as a failure of the state, while others see it as an extension of the welfare state. Responsive policies are hindered by the lack of a universally agreed definition of food poverty, which remains in general peripheral to the work of most policy makers. There is need for an enhanced understanding of the role of food assistance initiatives in the wider welfare landscape of high income countries. This paper departs from the belief that a bottom-up approach is needed to understand the complexity of food assistance mechanisms and that no “one fits all” positions and solutions are helpful in this regard. The aim of ...
There is growing recognition that the older adult life course can involve critical transitions th... more There is growing recognition that the older adult life course can involve critical transitions that function as significant sources of adversity, and ruptures in life trajectories. While knowledge about how these ruptures generate multidimensional disadvantage remains underdeveloped, less is known about how they are spatially constituted and how their processes and outcomes may be mediated by older peoples’ relationship with place. Utilizing a ‘sense of home’ as a conceptual orientation, this paper explores the role of place in social exclusion arising from life-course ruptures. Focusing on bereavement, dementia on-set and forced migration, it draws data from 45 life-course interviews. Place (e.g. home environment and the wider community) was involved in three ways: as a component of the rupture; as a life domain where people experience exclusion; and as a mediator of exclusionary processes. Circularity is observed, with perceived environmental uncertainty intensifying effects of ru...
Localization is one process/outcome that is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ that curre... more Localization is one process/outcome that is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ that currently face the food system. Consumers are attributed much agency in this potential transformation, being encouraged from all levels of society to exert their consumer muscle by buying local food. However, due to the social construction of scale it cannot be said that ‘local food’ is a definite entity and consumers understand the term ‘local food’ differently depending on their geographic and social context. As such, the research upon which this paper is based aimed to provide a nuanced understanding of how consumers in the particular spatial and social contexts of urban and rural Ireland understood the concept of ‘local food’. A specific objective was to test the theory that these consumers may have fallen into the ‘local trap’ by unquestioningly associating food from a spatially proximate place with positive characteristics. A three-phase mixed methodology was undertaken with a sample of...
Localisation is one process/outcome which is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ which cur... more Localisation is one process/outcome which is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ which currently face the food system. Consumers are attributed much agency in this potential transformation, being encouraged from all levels of society to exert their consumer muscle by buying local food. However, due to the social construction of scale it cannot be said that ‘local food’ is a definite entity and consumers understand the term ‘local food’ differently depending on their geographic and social context. As such, the research upon which this paper is based aimed to provide a nuanced understanding of how consumers in the particular spatial and social contexts of urban and rural Ireland understood the concept of ‘local food’. A specific objective was to test the theory that these consumers may have fallen into the ‘local trap’ by unquestioningly associating food from a spatially proximate place with positive characteristics. A three-phase mixed methodology was undertaken with a sample of consumers dwelling in urban and rural areas in both Dublin and Galway, Ireland: one thousand householders were surveyed; six focus group discussions took place; and twenty-eight semi-structured interviews were carried out. The results presented in this paper indicate that for most participants in this study, spatial proximity is the main parameter against which the ‘localness’ of food is measured. Also, it was found that participants held multiple meanings of local food and there was a degree of fluidity in their understandings of the term. The results from the case study regions highlight how participants’ understandings of local food changed depending on the food in question and its availability. However, the paper also indicates that as consumers move from one place to another, the meaning of local food becomes highly elastic. The meaning is stretched or contracted according to the perceived availability of food, greater or lesser connections to the local producer community and the relative geographic size of participants’ locations. Our analysis of findings from all three phases of this research revealed a difference in understandings of local food among participants resident in urban and rural areas: participants dwelling in rural areas were more likely than those in urban areas to define local food according to narrower spatial limits. The paper concludes with an overview of the practical and theoretical significance of these results in addressing the current dearth of research exploring the meaning of local food for consumers and suggests avenues for future research.
Drives to (re-)localise the system of food provisioning have arisen and proliferated
in recent t... more Drives to (re-)localise the system of food provisioning have arisen and proliferated
in recent times, chiefly in response to the negative consequences of the prevailing
global food system. Due to this, but also since Ireland has begun to experience
economic difficulties, many ‘Buy Irish Food’ campaigns have emerged and
although not a new phenomenon, their recent (re-)emergence and abundance are
notable. Drawing on discourses of sustainability, sustainable consumption and
geographical scales, this paper aims to critically analyse the nature of these
campaigns and the persuasive arguments upon which these promotions are based.
Following a review of the literature on values of consumers in Ireland towards
Irish and local food, a thematic analysis is employed to determine the key
rhetorical discourses which are common to three case study ‘Buy Irish Food’
campaigns. The research revealed instances of conflating ‘Irish’ and ‘local’ by
consumers and more commonly by those involved in the promotion of Irish food,
in addition to a reliance on local food rhetoric and spatial valorisation to the
detriment of ‘others’. Drawing on these findings, the paper concludes by
proffering a future research agenda, which highlights the need to investigate the
effects of such exclusions as well as a need for comparative research to potentially
consider the Irish case study in the context of patriotic purchasing rhetoric from
places considered to be geographically similar to Ireland.
There is increased emphasis on adopting positive health and aging policy goals for heterogeneous ... more There is increased emphasis on adopting positive health and aging policy goals for heterogeneous older populations, and recognition of the role that participatory research approaches can play in supporting their implementation. However, questions remain about how to represent the marginalized experiences of some older populations within such processes. With a focus on older Irish ethnic Travelers and older homeless adults as two vulnerable populations in Ireland, this article presents and critically discusses a participatory approach developed to integrate marginalized older adult perspectives on positive health and aging in a multistakeholder research and development process. The qualitative methodology is first detailed, incorporating methods that harness collaboratively derived views and individual narratives (e.g., focus groups; consultation forums; in-depth interviews). Critical reflections on research implementation and specific considerations relevant to these populations are...
Focusing on older Irish Travellers and older homeless people (OTOH) as two marginalised sub-secti... more Focusing on older Irish Travellers and older homeless people (OTOH) as two marginalised sub-sections of the older population, this paper investigates life-course and structural forms of material disadvantage, and its implications for positive health and accessing community care in older age. With growing interest in strengthening home care structures for older people, it is critical to interrogate the relevance of these structures for those who experience environmental uncertainty in later life, and possess significant trajectories of disadvantage. The analysis draws on 50 life-course interviews with OTOH aged between 50-72 years. The findings illustrate significant life-course experiences of material and multi-faceted forms of disadvantage, including stigma and discrimination, with implications across health and social lives. Housing deprivation was a multi-factorial player, causing certain physical illnesses, hindering some health treatments, and contributing to precarious conditi...
Older people experiencing homelessness and older Irish Travellers (OTOH) are both over-represente... more Older people experiencing homelessness and older Irish Travellers (OTOH) are both over-represented in the cohort who use acute health services. Impending health care reform in Ireland will be based on primary care models, meaning home and community care will be, for the first time, underpinned by a regulatory framework. For these reasons, this study aims to gain a nuanced understanding of how OTOH, as marginalised older people, might be best served by new home care and community care models. Using a qualitative, voice-led approach, a life course and structural determinants lens is employed to probe the health conditions, experiences and expectations of OTOH, as well as their perceptions and values around the concept of ‘home’. The research processes and outcomes of one of five phases of research are presented in this paper: participant-led research. In this phase, five OTOH were trained and assisted to complete a short research project which fed into the goals of the wider study. Em...
Most people in EU are food secure, but there are socio economic groups that struggle with poverty... more Most people in EU are food secure, but there are socio economic groups that struggle with poverty and health, making them vulnerable to food insecurity and in recent years there has been an increase in people needing food assistance in Europe. As the literature portrays, the position of food assistance in the food system is a contested one. On the one hand, critics describe it as a failure of the state, while others see it as an extension of the welfare state. Responsive policies are hindered by the lack of a universally agreed definition of food poverty, which remains in general peripheral to the work of most policy makers. There is need for an enhanced understanding of the role of food assistance initiatives in the wider welfare landscape of high income countries. This paper departs from the belief that a bottom-up approach is needed to understand the complexity of food assistance mechanisms and that no “one fits all” positions and solutions are helpful in this regard. The aim of ...
There is growing recognition that the older adult life course can involve critical transitions th... more There is growing recognition that the older adult life course can involve critical transitions that function as significant sources of adversity, and ruptures in life trajectories. While knowledge about how these ruptures generate multidimensional disadvantage remains underdeveloped, less is known about how they are spatially constituted and how their processes and outcomes may be mediated by older peoples’ relationship with place. Utilizing a ‘sense of home’ as a conceptual orientation, this paper explores the role of place in social exclusion arising from life-course ruptures. Focusing on bereavement, dementia on-set and forced migration, it draws data from 45 life-course interviews. Place (e.g. home environment and the wider community) was involved in three ways: as a component of the rupture; as a life domain where people experience exclusion; and as a mediator of exclusionary processes. Circularity is observed, with perceived environmental uncertainty intensifying effects of ru...
Localization is one process/outcome that is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ that curre... more Localization is one process/outcome that is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ that currently face the food system. Consumers are attributed much agency in this potential transformation, being encouraged from all levels of society to exert their consumer muscle by buying local food. However, due to the social construction of scale it cannot be said that ‘local food’ is a definite entity and consumers understand the term ‘local food’ differently depending on their geographic and social context. As such, the research upon which this paper is based aimed to provide a nuanced understanding of how consumers in the particular spatial and social contexts of urban and rural Ireland understood the concept of ‘local food’. A specific objective was to test the theory that these consumers may have fallen into the ‘local trap’ by unquestioningly associating food from a spatially proximate place with positive characteristics. A three-phase mixed methodology was undertaken with a sample of...
Localisation is one process/outcome which is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ which cur... more Localisation is one process/outcome which is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ which currently face the food system. Consumers are attributed much agency in this potential transformation, being encouraged from all levels of society to exert their consumer muscle by buying local food. However, due to the social construction of scale it cannot be said that ‘local food’ is a definite entity and consumers understand the term ‘local food’ differently depending on their geographic and social context. As such, the research upon which this paper is based aimed to provide a nuanced understanding of how consumers in the particular spatial and social contexts of urban and rural Ireland understood the concept of ‘local food’. A specific objective was to test the theory that these consumers may have fallen into the ‘local trap’ by unquestioningly associating food from a spatially proximate place with positive characteristics. A three-phase mixed methodology was undertaken with a sample of consumers dwelling in urban and rural areas in both Dublin and Galway, Ireland: one thousand householders were surveyed; six focus group discussions took place; and twenty-eight semi-structured interviews were carried out. The results presented in this paper indicate that for most participants in this study, spatial proximity is the main parameter against which the ‘localness’ of food is measured. Also, it was found that participants held multiple meanings of local food and there was a degree of fluidity in their understandings of the term. The results from the case study regions highlight how participants’ understandings of local food changed depending on the food in question and its availability. However, the paper also indicates that as consumers move from one place to another, the meaning of local food becomes highly elastic. The meaning is stretched or contracted according to the perceived availability of food, greater or lesser connections to the local producer community and the relative geographic size of participants’ locations. Our analysis of findings from all three phases of this research revealed a difference in understandings of local food among participants resident in urban and rural areas: participants dwelling in rural areas were more likely than those in urban areas to define local food according to narrower spatial limits. The paper concludes with an overview of the practical and theoretical significance of these results in addressing the current dearth of research exploring the meaning of local food for consumers and suggests avenues for future research.
Drives to (re-)localise the system of food provisioning have arisen and proliferated
in recent t... more Drives to (re-)localise the system of food provisioning have arisen and proliferated
in recent times, chiefly in response to the negative consequences of the prevailing
global food system. Due to this, but also since Ireland has begun to experience
economic difficulties, many ‘Buy Irish Food’ campaigns have emerged and
although not a new phenomenon, their recent (re-)emergence and abundance are
notable. Drawing on discourses of sustainability, sustainable consumption and
geographical scales, this paper aims to critically analyse the nature of these
campaigns and the persuasive arguments upon which these promotions are based.
Following a review of the literature on values of consumers in Ireland towards
Irish and local food, a thematic analysis is employed to determine the key
rhetorical discourses which are common to three case study ‘Buy Irish Food’
campaigns. The research revealed instances of conflating ‘Irish’ and ‘local’ by
consumers and more commonly by those involved in the promotion of Irish food,
in addition to a reliance on local food rhetoric and spatial valorisation to the
detriment of ‘others’. Drawing on these findings, the paper concludes by
proffering a future research agenda, which highlights the need to investigate the
effects of such exclusions as well as a need for comparative research to potentially
consider the Irish case study in the context of patriotic purchasing rhetoric from
places considered to be geographically similar to Ireland.
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Papers by Brídín Carroll
The results presented in this paper indicate that for most participants in this study, spatial proximity is the main parameter against which the ‘localness’ of food is measured. Also, it was found that participants held multiple meanings of local food and there was a degree of fluidity in their understandings of the term. The results from the case study regions highlight how participants’ understandings of local food changed depending on the food in question and its availability. However, the paper also indicates that as consumers move from one place to another, the meaning of local food becomes highly elastic. The meaning is stretched or contracted according to the perceived availability of food, greater or lesser connections to the local producer community and the relative geographic size of participants’ locations. Our analysis of findings from all three phases of this research revealed a difference in understandings of local food among participants resident in urban and rural areas: participants dwelling in rural areas were more likely than those in urban areas to define local food according to narrower spatial limits. The paper concludes with an overview of the practical and theoretical significance of these results in addressing the current dearth of research exploring the meaning of local food for consumers and suggests avenues for future research.
in recent times, chiefly in response to the negative consequences of the prevailing
global food system. Due to this, but also since Ireland has begun to experience
economic difficulties, many ‘Buy Irish Food’ campaigns have emerged and
although not a new phenomenon, their recent (re-)emergence and abundance are
notable. Drawing on discourses of sustainability, sustainable consumption and
geographical scales, this paper aims to critically analyse the nature of these
campaigns and the persuasive arguments upon which these promotions are based.
Following a review of the literature on values of consumers in Ireland towards
Irish and local food, a thematic analysis is employed to determine the key
rhetorical discourses which are common to three case study ‘Buy Irish Food’
campaigns. The research revealed instances of conflating ‘Irish’ and ‘local’ by
consumers and more commonly by those involved in the promotion of Irish food,
in addition to a reliance on local food rhetoric and spatial valorisation to the
detriment of ‘others’. Drawing on these findings, the paper concludes by
proffering a future research agenda, which highlights the need to investigate the
effects of such exclusions as well as a need for comparative research to potentially
consider the Irish case study in the context of patriotic purchasing rhetoric from
places considered to be geographically similar to Ireland.
The results presented in this paper indicate that for most participants in this study, spatial proximity is the main parameter against which the ‘localness’ of food is measured. Also, it was found that participants held multiple meanings of local food and there was a degree of fluidity in their understandings of the term. The results from the case study regions highlight how participants’ understandings of local food changed depending on the food in question and its availability. However, the paper also indicates that as consumers move from one place to another, the meaning of local food becomes highly elastic. The meaning is stretched or contracted according to the perceived availability of food, greater or lesser connections to the local producer community and the relative geographic size of participants’ locations. Our analysis of findings from all three phases of this research revealed a difference in understandings of local food among participants resident in urban and rural areas: participants dwelling in rural areas were more likely than those in urban areas to define local food according to narrower spatial limits. The paper concludes with an overview of the practical and theoretical significance of these results in addressing the current dearth of research exploring the meaning of local food for consumers and suggests avenues for future research.
in recent times, chiefly in response to the negative consequences of the prevailing
global food system. Due to this, but also since Ireland has begun to experience
economic difficulties, many ‘Buy Irish Food’ campaigns have emerged and
although not a new phenomenon, their recent (re-)emergence and abundance are
notable. Drawing on discourses of sustainability, sustainable consumption and
geographical scales, this paper aims to critically analyse the nature of these
campaigns and the persuasive arguments upon which these promotions are based.
Following a review of the literature on values of consumers in Ireland towards
Irish and local food, a thematic analysis is employed to determine the key
rhetorical discourses which are common to three case study ‘Buy Irish Food’
campaigns. The research revealed instances of conflating ‘Irish’ and ‘local’ by
consumers and more commonly by those involved in the promotion of Irish food,
in addition to a reliance on local food rhetoric and spatial valorisation to the
detriment of ‘others’. Drawing on these findings, the paper concludes by
proffering a future research agenda, which highlights the need to investigate the
effects of such exclusions as well as a need for comparative research to potentially
consider the Irish case study in the context of patriotic purchasing rhetoric from
places considered to be geographically similar to Ireland.