Balancing care and control: Emotional labour and dignity in a solidarity restaurant

Abstract

This study examines the lived experiences of food insecurity and volunteer work in a Portuguese solidarity restaurant using a reflexive autoethnographic approach based on two years of participant observation. Situating personal narratives within the frameworks of stigma, care ethics, and emotional labour, it explores the moral dilemmas, affective demands, and power dynamics inherent in food aid work. Findings reveal persistent tensions between institutional control and relational care, as volunteers navigate compassion, rule enforcement, and ethical discomfort. These dynamics are conceptualised in the Tension Triangle Model of Food Aid Work, which maps the interplay between institutional expectations, volunteer emotional burden, and recipient agency. Recipients, in turn, manage stigma, resist dependency, and assert dignity within constrained aid systems. By employing a reflexive, first-person methodology, this study challenges dominant narratives of humanitarian aid, exposing the emotional and structural complexities of caregiving and the unintended hierarchies embedded in voluntary work. It advocates for dignity-centred, ethically grounded approaches to food assistance that move beyond paternalism and toward inclusive, justice-oriented support.