Social norms in contemporary urban food sharing contexts: a critical interpretive review

In recent decades, collective approaches to food provisioning have garnered increasing attention in agri-food studies and on the ground. A wide range of community-oriented food practices, including community gardens, urban allotments, community kitchens, social supermarkets, surplus redistribution networks and more have been documented and theorized in the academic literature. Urban food sharing, understood here as collective acts across the food system, describes any activity that involves the sharing of food, spaces and stuff for the purpose of growing produce, eating and cooking, or redistributing surplus. Furthermore, food sharing encompasses not just organizational routines, but also social expectations, norms, symbolic values, and different ways of knowing and doing. This critical interpretive review collected and summarized peer reviewed research published between 2000 and 2023 to identify how the existing literature on urban food sharing attends to social norms across geographies. Our analysis uncovers ongoing tensions between competing normative demands—such as autonomy versus safety, efficiency versus conviviality, or charity versus solidarity—especially in non-familial, semi-public settings. Having identified gaps in the literature, we call for future research into food sharing to challenge normative blind spots by taking into account dynamics of care, the conflictual politics of food sharing initiatives, and changing social norms.

Food sharing is a universal phenomenon that can be found across cultures, an age-old practice embedded in the rhythms of everyday life and shaped by cultural, material, and social contexts (Morrison et al., 1996; Enloe, 2003; Kaplan and Gurven, 2005; Gurven and Jaeggi, 2015; Jaeggi and Gurven, 2018; Ahedo et al., 2019; Kishigami, 2021; Jaeggi and Gurven, 2013). Across societies, it encompasses not only the redistribution and mundane consumption of food but also ritualized moments, including community feasts, and festive celebrations (Dunbar, 2017; Fischler, 2011; Julier, 2013; van der Heijden and Wiggins, 2025; Warde, 2013). A substantial body of literature characterizes these practices as central to human evolution such as building and maintaining social ties, transmitting cultural traditions and values, and fostering belonging and solidarity (Dunbar, 2017; Fehr and Fischbacher, 2004; Fischler, 2011; Jaeggi and Gurven, 2013; Julier, 2013; Kaplan and Gurven, 2005). However, these interpretations are not uncontested. Food sharing can also reinforce social boundaries, distinguish between insiders and outsiders, reproduce social hierarchies, and reflect unequal relations of power and access (Morrow, 2022; Phull et al., 2015). Rather than treating food sharing as inherently cohesive or beneficial, we approach it as a socially embedded practice whose meanings, functions, and consequences vary across historical, cultural, and institutional contexts.

While food sharing has been consistently examined in literature as a feature specific to hunter-gatherer or traditional societies (Ahedo et al., 2019; Jaeggi and Gurven, 2013; Kaplan and Gurven, 2005; Kishigami, 2021), an extensive body of scholarship explores its conceptual significance in urban contexts (Cohen and Muñoz, 2016; Davies et al., 2017a, 2017b; Davies et al., 2019; Davies and Evans, 2019; Davies and Legg, 2018; Edwards and Davies, 2018; Loh and Agyeman, 2019; Michelini et al., 2018; Octavia et al., 2022). In the attempts to unify existing and emerging literature on collective food provisioning under the umbrella term of food sharing, the literature portrays a diverse set of connective practices that have been associated with sustainability, community resilience, and environmental action (Davies et al., 2019; Davies and Evans, 2019; Davies and Legg, 2018; Falcone and Imbert, 2017; Jehlička et al., 2019; Rut and Davies, 2018; Williams and Tait, 2022; Zurek, 2016). However, when taken separately, literature analyzing place-based forms of organized sharing opens up a plethora of dilemmas surrounding participation and exclusion present to a certain degree across different forms of food provisioning (Caplan, 2016; Guthman, 2008; Hayes-Conroy and Hayes-Conroy, 2013; McIntyre et al., 2016; Tornaghi, 2017). Therefore, contemporary food sharing phenomenon must be understood less as a set of uniformly beneficial interventions and more as an open-ended process happening on multiple sites where social, environmental, economic, and political values are negotiated through everyday practices of growing, cooking, eating and redistributing food (Davies et al., 2017; Davies et al., 2017b; Smith et al., 2015).

For the purposes of this paper, we adopt Davies et al.'s (2017a) definition of food sharing as collective and community-organized activities related to food growing, cooking, eating, and redistribution. In our conceptualization of food sharing, we look at it as a constellation of socially embedded practices that encompass not only the movement of food but also the social expectations, symbolic meanings, embodied performances, and habitual routines through which these activities are organized and experienced. Furthermore, our research focuses specifically on food sharing in public and community spaces rather than familial, charitable, or commercial settings.

Given the cultural, material, organizational, and economic diversity of contemporary food sharing initiatives (Davies et al., 2017b; Davies and Evans, 2019)—and the communities in which they operate—we believe it is important to understand how social conventions simultaneously shape and are shaped by food sharing practices in urban contexts. Inspired by the existence of numerous initiatives and several ethnographic examples pointing to a wide range of food sharing experiences - such as Food not Bombs and Food Sharing Germany - we undertook a review of the literature to understand how normative expectations present in urban food sharing practices are identified across the food sharing literature. Examining case studies on urban food sharing across different socio-cultural contexts we analyze how food sharing initiatives navigate social norms in their day-to-day activities.

Social norms are conceptualized differently across disciplines but are commonly distinguished as descriptive norms (what people typically do), injunctive norms (what people approve or disapprove of), and subjective norms (perceived social pressure to behave in certain ways). Our analysis focuses primarily on descriptive and injunctive norms, drawing on Frese's (2015) distinction between cultural practices and cultural values. We understand social norms as informal, collectively shared standards of behavior (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2004) that are expressed both through routinized practices and through shared understandings of what is considered desirable, appropriate, or morally acceptable. They are context-dependent, often implicit, and continuously reproduced through social interaction rather than simply imposed through formal rules (Lapinski and Rimal, 2005; Rimal and Lapinski, 2015). As Hawkins et al. (2019) argue, norms emerge through interactions between everyday encounters, network dynamics, and institutional processes.

Research has consistently shown that social norms are a key determinant of food choices and eating behaviors, shaping what, how much, and when people eat. Social norms can affect dietary decisions through both descriptive norms (perceptions of what others do) and injunctive norms (perceptions of what others approve of), often operating automatically within everyday social contexts (Higgs, 2015). Evidence further indicates that repeated exposure to certain food environments can reinforce habits, making healthy or unhealthy food choices more likely to become routine over time (Kadhim and Amiot, 2022; Lally et al., 2011). Experimental studies also demonstrate that food environments can be staged to influence food choice in ways that can encourage healthier and sustainable food selections and reduce unhealthy consumption, highlighting the potential of norm-based interventions to promote dietary change (Çoker et al., 2022; Raghoebar et al., 2019). Together, these findings underscore the importance of social norms as a key determinant of eating behavior and a promising mechanism for improving dietary outcomes. Building on this understanding, our interest lies in identifying and mapping the collective norms embedded in food sharing practices. We view social norms and everyday food practices as mutually constitutive: norms shape how food sharing is organized, enacted, and experienced, while the repeated enactment of food-sharing practices simultaneously reproduces, negotiates, and transforms those norms.

Against this background, this paper analyses what existing qualitative research on collective food growing, cooking, eating, and redistribution reveals about the social norms underpinning contemporary food sharing. Following an outline of our review methods, we present our findings in four thematic clusters—encounter, access, exchange, and engagement—that aim to capture the normative dimensions of food sharing practices. Across these themes, we identify persistent tensions between competing normative demands, including autonomy versus safety, efficiency versus conviviality, charity versus solidarity, and openness versus exclusion, particularly within non-familial and non-commercial settings such as community gardens, community kitchens, and surplus food redistribution initiatives. By synthesizing these findings, we show how contemporary food sharing initiatives both reproduce and reconfigure the social norms that shape collective food practices and, in turn, how those norms influence the possibilities and limitations of food sharing as a form of social organization.

This review is part of a broader effort to support multi-stakeholder cooperation for sustainable and resilient food sharing. To be transparent in our approach, we follow the advice of Braun and Clarke (2006) and introduce our collective and individual positionality. All of us identify as women and have a hybrid identity as researchers and food sharing practitioners (community gardeners, community kitchen cooks and guests, CSA members). During this research period we were employed by a Horizon Europe funded project that valued this hybridity and sought to promote and expand the benefits of food sharing in European cities. However, we all come from different cultural backgrounds with their own social norms around food sharing, and have experience with food sharing initiatives in Canada, USA, Czechia, Romania, Germany, and the Netherlands. Our life and work experiences with the benefits (as well as tensions) of food sharing, have certainly influenced our choice of search terms and given us a much larger pool of experience to draw on in our memo-writing. They also make us sensitive to the terminology that food sharing initiatives themselves use to describe their practices: care, conviviality, hospitality, solidarity, and mutual aid. We do not see this as a normative bias, but a commitment to producing research that is legible to the food sharing initiatives we study and collaborate with. To make the data useful to the project, we also sought to capture the types of food sharing (shared growing, cooking, eating, and redistributing) that were represented in the project consortium – and employed the definition of food sharing adopted by the project. However, these choices have the unintended consequence of reproducing a North American and Eurocentric bias in our selection of papers.

To examine how the literature conceptualizes social norms in food sharing, we conducted a Critical Interpretative Review (CIR) of qualitative studies on food sharing in urban settings (Depraetere et al., 2021; Dixon-Woods et al., 2006). Our analysis pursued two objectives. First, we sought to identify and connect fragmented bodies of literature under the umbrella of food sharing. Second, we examined the normative dimensions embedded within these practices and the ways they shape social interactions, participation, and collective organization. Initially, the review was designed as a scoping review following Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) six-step framework: (1) formulating the research question, (2) operationalizing concepts, (3) identifying relevant studies, (4) selecting studies, (5) classifying and reporting data, and (6) stakeholder consultation. However, during the preliminary stages of analysis it became clear that a conventional scoping review was insufficient for the theoretical aims of this study. While scoping reviews are useful for mapping heterogeneous fields, they are less suited for theory building and the interpretation of emergent conceptual relationships across diverse literatures.

We therefore adopted a Critical Interpretative Review (CIR) approach for stages three to five of the review process. Developed by Dixon-Woods et al. (2006) and later complemented by McDougall (2015) and Goñi (2025), CIR combines systematic searching with iterative and interpretative analysis. Rather than aiming for methodological exhaustiveness alone, CIR emphasizes conceptual synthesis and critical engagement with heterogeneous bodies of literature. This approach was particularly appropriate because food sharing is not yet a stable or consistently defined field of study, but rather an umbrella term encompassing diverse collective food practices. Following Goñi (2025) two-phase approach, the review combined systematic search procedures with iterative conceptual development. CIR allowed us to move iteratively between searching, coding, and interpretation, enabling the refinement of analytical categories throughout the review process rather than treating coding as a fixed or linear procedure.

The first phase focused on formulating the research question, clarifying concepts, and identifying preliminary analytical dimensions. Throughout the review, we also employed analytical memoing to support interpretation. Article memos were used to record conceptual insights emerging from individual studies in the coding process, while diagonal memos documented broader analytical developments and shifts in interpretation across the review process (Appendix 2).

Classifying the data: research question, concepts, and study identification

The review began with the broad question: What social norms are evident in existing literature on urban food sharing (e.g., shared growing, cooking and eating, and food redistribution)? How do social norms shape, and how are they shaped by, food sharing practices?

In line with the interpretative logic of CIR, the search strategy evolved alongside the analytical process. Initial searches using the term “food sharing” generated relatively few relevant studies and revealed that the concept was frequently studied either within hunter-gatherer societies or with food sharing among non-human species. Adding the geographical qualifiers “urban” further narrowed the search results. At the same time, an emerging body of literature was beginning to use food sharing as an umbrella term encompassing collective practices related to growing, cooking, eating, and redistributing food outside household or kinship structures.

To capture this broader field, we further disaggregated the search terms across three modalities of food sharing: collective actions to grow, cook and eat, and redistribute food. Drawing on both academic and lived experience, we developed targeted search terms related to these practices while maintaining food sharing as the overarching frame of reference. Additional terms such as “dumpster diving” and “guerrilla gardening” were included to capture practices associated with one or more modalities of food sharing.

The literature search was conducted between February and September 2023 through both manual and automated searches. Manual searches were carried out in the Scopus database and focused on English-language peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2023 within the fields of social sciences and arts and humanities. Automated searches were conducted using Research Rabbit, an AI-supported citation mapping tool. Articles identified through Scopus were used as seed papers, enabling Research Rabbit to identify additional studies through citation networks and keyword associations.

The Scopus search queries generated 634 articles (Appendix 1). These were screened by title and abstract according to predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table 1). Studies were included if they addressed one of the three food sharing modalities and focused on urban context. We excluded studies centered primarily on broader food-system sustainability or food education programs, such as school gardens or cooking classes. We also excluded studies examining food sharing exclusively through digital platforms, intra- or inter-familial sharing, and initiatives operating exclusively as charitable organization (e.g., food aid, food banks), or for-profit, including social enterprises.

Following the screening process, 68 articles were selected for full-text analysis (Appendix 3). The selected studies were entered into a Microsoft Excel database, recording information on the year of publication, author(s), title, food-sharing modality, and country of study. The publications spanned the period from 2001 to 2023, with most articles published between 2019 and 2022. The studies covered 27 countries, with the highest number of case studies conducted in Australia (10), the United States (9), the United Kingdom (8), Germany (6), and the Netherlands (5). Additional case studies were reported from other European countries (17), Central and South America (4), and East Asia (5).

The reviewed literature examined a diverse range of food-sharing practices and organizational forms. Shared growing was the most frequently studied modality (32 studies), followed by food redistribution (31 studies) and collective cooking and eating (22 studies). Fifteen articles addressed more than one food-sharing modality. Among these, four examined all three modalities, five jointly explored collective cooking and eating alongside food redistribution, four focused on shared growing together with collective cooking and eating, and two analyzed shared growing in combination with food redistribution. Across the case studies, food sharing encompassed a broad spectrum of practices involving the sharing of land, seeds, food, infrastructure, and knowledge. The initiatives examined included: community gardens and allotments, community kitchens, supper clubs, community cafés, community feasts, composting initiatives, guerrilla gardening, community fridges, social supermarkets, dumpster diving, and seed-sharing networks.

Data analysis and thematic development

The analysis drew on multiple forms of data presented within the selected studies, including descriptions of local conditions, perspectives of organizers, volunteers, and participants, as well as authors’ own observations and interpretations. We considered this diversity of perspectives essential for understanding how food sharing practices are embedded within particular social, cultural, and institutional contexts.

The analytical process combined deductive and inductive coding conducted primarily by the first author in consultation with the rest of the authors. An initial deductive coding framework identified four broad categories capturing organizational routines, geographical and governance contexts, assumptions surrounding appropriate forms of sharing, and broader socio-political transformations shaping food sharing practices. Following an initial round of coding executed by the first author, we refined the category of social norms into five more specific dimensions: transactions and payments; audiences; expectations of participants; time commitments; and location and spatial arrangements. These themes were subsequently applied across all three modalities of food sharing to identify recurring patterns and points of connection between otherwise distinct bodies of literature. As the analysis progressed, we returned iteratively to the studies and developed additional inductive codes grounded in the conceptual language used by the authors themselves. This process also understood as diagonal memoing (Goñi, 2025) generated a set of cross-cutting themes linking the literature across modalities: hospitality; responsibility and care; property and access; and gift-giving and reciprocity (Table 2).

In the final stage of analysis, these codes were clustered through Braun and Clarke’s (Ahmed et al., 2025; Braun and Clarke, 2006) reflexive thematic analysis approach to identify broader thematic patterns across the literature. The clustering process was iterative and shaped through ongoing discussions within the research team. As with all qualitative and interpretative research, we recognize that the analytical process involved situated interpretative decisions informed by the positionalities of the researchers, including commitments to the diverse economies research project, and research and lived experience with commoning practices and communities. The resulting framework should therefore be understood as one possible interpretation of the literature rather than a definitive categorization.

The thematic analysis ultimately identified four overarching dimensions through which norms and values become visible within food sharing practices:

terms of encounter — how norms of hospitality shape commensality and conviviality;

terms of access — how ownership, entitlement, and distribution are negotiated to broaden access;

terms of exchange — underlining assumptions behind practices of giving, receiving, and reciprocity;

terms of engagement and maintenance — how food sharing initiatives are sustained through care, emotional investment, and responsibility.

Together, these dimensions illuminate how identified norms are mobilized across diverse forms of food sharing, ranging from informal grassroots initiatives to institutionalized programs operating in different socio-economic and geographical contexts. We seek to understand what social norms are at play in food sharing initiatives, and how these shape everyday practices, social relations, and forms of belonging (as well as exclusion). We examine both accepted norms that are mobilized and celebrated, as well as points of friction, and refusal – where social norms are being contested and subverted.

Finally, we conducted an adapted version of Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) sixth step through informal consultations with colleagues researching food-related topics during research seminars. Feedback from these discussions contributed to the refinement of the analytical framework and presentation of the findings.

As expected, the literature presents a broad range of practices and organizational forms that fit our definition of food sharing, including community gardens, allotments, mobile kitchens, potlucks, soup kitchens, dumpster diving, community fridges, and food pantries. These cases differ substantially in their organizational logics, meanings, motivations, and culturally specific practices, reflecting the diversity of contexts in which they emerge (Davies et al., 2017b; Davies and Evans, 2019). Existing research further highlights considerable variation in the ethos, organizational principles, and modes of participation underpinning foodsharing initiatives.

A recurring theme in the literature concerns the role of underlying motivations and political orientations of organizers and participants in shaping food-sharing practices (Bonow and Normark, 2018; Hasanov et al., 2019; Rombach and Bitsch, 2015; Rondeau et al., 2020; Schanes and Stagl, 2019; Ulug and Horlings, 2019). Whether framed as charity, activism, mutual aid, or social integration, these political orientations influence how the initiative organizes their day-to-day operations in response to local conditions (Alexander, 2021; Apostolopoulou and Kotsila, 2022; Aptekar and Myers, 2020; Berns et al., 2021a, 2021b; Deflorian, 2023; Edwards, 2021; Ghose and Pettygrove, 2014; Immink, 2001; Lundström, 2023; Swan, 2021; Ulug and Horlings, 2019; Ulug and Trell, 2020). In doing so, we observed that foodsharing initiatives described in the literature contribute to the construction and negotiation of social categories such as “the community” (Firth et al., 2011; Hasanov et al., 2019; Pudup, 2008), “the guest” (Edwards, 2021; Flowers and Swan, 2017; Gill et al., 2022; Swan, 2021), and “the needy” (Gracjasz and Grasseni, 2020; Pyyhtinen and Lehtonen, 2023), thereby shaping what forms of behaviors are encouraged or expected, and how value is attributed to both food and those who share or receive it.

Terms of encounter: hospitality, commensality and conviviality

Hospitality has long been understood as a fundamental aspect of socio-cultural life, reflecting the willingness to receive others with dignity and generosity, often without expectation of reward (Lashley, 2000, 2015). Traditionally associated with the provision of food, shelter, and entertainment within domestic and commercial settings, more recent scholarship has expanded the concept to encompass a broader range of welcoming practices enacted across diverse spaces, materialities, and temporalities (Barnett and Land, 2007; Bell, 2007; Gill et al., 2022; Lynch, 2017). Rather than viewing hospitality solely as a set of practices, contemporary literature increasingly conceptualizes it as a relational and normative framework which mediates openness to strangers, social difference, and ethical responsibility towards others (Derrida, 2000; Lynch et al., 2011; Wise, 2011).

Central to this literature is the host–guest relationship (Telfer, 2001). Classical understandings of hospitality position the host as the provider of care and the guest as the recipient, with reciprocity often expressed through gratitude and adherence to the host’s rules (Lynch et al., 2011). While hospitality is frequently associated with generosity and moral obligation, particularly across religious and cultural traditions (Lashley, 2015), scholars have also highlighted its inherent asymmetries (Wise, 2011). Derrida (2005) argues that hospitality is to some extent, conditional, as the host retains authority over the space and establishes the terms under which welcoming is extended. Similarly, research in tourism and migration studies demonstrates that hospitality functions as a mechanism through which social differences are simultaneously accommodated and regulated (Lashley, 2000; Pascucci, 2018). Thus, hospitality represents both an ethic of inclusion and a site where power relations are reproduced (Kravva, 2014).

In several studies, the food sharing literature identifies commensality and conviviality as central frameworks for understanding how hospitality is enacted in food-sharing initiatives (Edwards, 2021; Edwards and Davies, 2018; Flowers and Swan, 2017; Smith and Harvey, 2021; Starck and Matta, 2022). Fischler (2011) defines commensality as the symbolic practice of eating together, through which social relationships and collective identities are produced. Likewise, Warde et al. (2020) argue that hospitality enacted through shared meals in the home reinforces social bonds and distinguishes domestic eating from commercial forms of dining. Together, these perspectives highlight how shared meals function as sites through which hospitality, belonging, and sociality are enacted.

While commensality draws attention to the social significance of eating together, it has also been criticized for being exclusionary, reinforcing social hierarchy making the shared meals the primary locus of social integration (Julier, 2013). The concept of conviviality offers a broader analytical perspective by focusing on the everyday practices and dispositions through which people negotiate social relations across differences (Nowicka and Vertovec, 2014; Wise and Noble, 2016). Phull et al. (2015) describe conviviality as encompassing ongoing efforts to openness, friendliness, and mutual engagement that accompany shared eating, while Nowicka and Vertovec (2014) define it as the capacity to live together across differences through the sharing of time, space, and resources. Importantly, conviviality shifts attention from the act of eating together itself to the processes through which relationships are built, negotiated, and sustained, even where social differences and inequalities remain (Phull et al., 2015; Samanani, 2023). Within the food sharing literature, commensality and conviviality are often employed as complementary concepts for analyzing how food sharing initiatives foster hospitality, negotiate norms of reciprocity, cultivate belonging, and create opportunities for encounters across social differences (Alexander, 2021; Flowers and Swan, 2017; Marovelli, 2019; Hennchen and Pregernig, 2020; Berns et al., 2021a; Smith and Harvey, 2021; Eizenberg, 2012; Starck and Matta, 2022; Caldwell, 2022; Caudwell et al., 2020).

These conceptual perspectives are particularly useful to understand how food sharing initiatives mobilize hospitality norms to create a convivial atmosphere. The cases presented in the literature show that rather than merely providing food, initiatives cultivate particular dispositions regarding hospitableness so that it encourages participation and nudge interactions among participants (Berns et al., 2021a; Edwards, 2021; Marovelli, 2019; Veen and Dagevos, 2019). While organizers often assume the role of hosts by providing food and space, the distinction between host and guest is frequently blurred (Alexander, 2021; Edwards, 2021; Flowers and Swan, 2017; Hasanov et al., 2019; Marovelli, 2019; Smith and Harvey, 2021; Ulug and Trell, 2020). Participants are commonly encouraged to contribute by preparing food, setting tables, serving meals, cleaning shared spaces, or volunteering in other capacities (Alexander, 2021; Marovelli, 2019). Such practices challenge conventional domestic (Warde et al., 2020) and commercial models of hospitality (Bell, 2007) by redistributing responsibility among participants and fostering more reciprocal forms of hosting (Caldwell, 2022; Caudwell et al., 2020). In some contexts, engagement remains entirely voluntary (Berns et al., 2021b), whereas in other cases symbolic or material exchanges between hosts and participants happen through rewards for labor or donations (Alexander, 2021; Williams and Tait, 2022).

The literature analyzed also emphasizes the importance of the material and spatial organization of hospitality. Some food sharing initiatives deliberately construct environments intended to foster dignity, conviviality, and social connection through the design of eating spaces (Marovelli, 2019; Smith and Harvey, 2021; Ulug and Trell, 2020). Community centers, churches, cafés, and public streets have been conceptualized as “third spaces” that occupy an intermediate position between domestic and public arenas (Berns et al., 2021a; Caldwell, 2022; Edwards, 2021; Schroeder, 2006; Wise, 2011). Within these spaces, seemingly mundane elements—including table arrangements, seating configurations, serving styles, and the physical presentation of food—shape the quality of social interaction and influence participants’ experiences of welcome and belonging. Long communal tables, for example, are an iconic feature that encourage encounters among strangers and foster collective intimacy (Alexander, 2021; Marovelli, 2019; Smith and Harvey, 2021; Ulug and Trell, 2020).

Several studies further demonstrate that many initiatives intentionally combine elements of domestic and commercial hospitality. Community cafés and social restaurants preparing meals from rescued food often reproduce aspects of restaurant dining while simultaneously emphasizing the intimacy and equality associated with sharing meals at home (Alexander, 2021; Edwards, 2021; Marovelli, 2019; Smith and Harvey, 2021; Ulug and Trell, 2020). These hybrid environments seek to balance affordability with dignity, enabling encounters among strangers that are framed as shared social experiences, moving the focus from the food being served to the quality of interactions (Capponi, 2020; Edwards, 2021). In these cases, shared meals become opportunities for leisure, recognition, and community building, particularly among migrants and socially marginalized groups (Caudwell et al., 2020).

Importantly, the literature points toward the fact that shared meals are never culturally neutral. Decisions regarding menu composition, serving styles, seating arrangements, and shared meal times communicate particular values concerning inclusion (Clark, 2004; Smith and Harvey, 2021; Wise, 2011). Ethical commitments to sustainability, food waste reduction, cultural diversity, or religious accommodation are enacted within organizational choices (Clark, 2004; Edwards, 2021; Hennchen and Pregernig, 2020; Lundström, 2023; Marovelli, 2019; Murphy, 2019; Smith and Harvey, 2021; Starck and Matta, 2022; Swan, 2021; Wise, 2011) The provision of vegetarian, vegan, halal, or alcohol-free options, for example, reflects not only practical considerations but broader negotiations over whose identities and practices are recognized within shared spaces (Caudwell et al., 2020; Flowers and Swan, 2017; Wise, 2011). Consequently, the literature increasingly portrays hospitality in food sharing initiatives as an ongoing process of negotiating belonging through material arrangements, everyday interactions, and moral expectations rather than as the simple provision of food (Marovelli, 2019; Spring et al., 2019; Swan, 2021; Ulug and Trell, 2020).

Hospitality is similarly negotiated through other forms of food sharing. In some cases, urban gardening initiatives provide opportunities for intercultural exchange, allowing participants to express identities through cultivation practices, crop selection, and collective rituals (Eizenberg, 2012). However, dominant norms surrounding language, ecological knowledge, and aesthetic standards may privilege particular groups while marginalizing others, despite explicit efforts to promote inclusion (Aptekar and Myers, 2020; Montefrio et al., 2021; Slavuj Borčić et al., 2016; van Holstein, 2020). Likewise, food redistribution networks illustrate how hospitality is shaped by spatial and temporal arrangements. Systems of food re-distribution can trigger experiences of stigma, dependence, or exclusion, while simultaneously attempting to transform these encounters into opportunities for community engagement and political participation (Devillers, 2023; Savio, 2017; Schroeder, 2006; Spring et al., 2019).

Terms of access: property relations, ownership and commoning

A growing body of literature highlights the potential of food sharing activities to facilitate access to food, land and tools while challenging dominant understandings of food as a commodity governed by private property norms (Biazoti and Sorrentino, 2022; Bresnihan and Byrne, 2015; Devillers, 2023; Edwards and Davies, 2018; Morrow, 2019b, 2019a; Morrow and Martin, 2019; Shur-Ofry and Malcai, 2021). Across diverse practices—including collective gardening, community fridges, and dumpster diving—food sharing reconfigures relationships between people, resources, and urban space by questioning who is entitled to access, use, or benefit of food and land (Edwards and Mercer, 2007; Lojdová, 2020; Pyyhtinen and Lehtonen, 2023; Rombach and Bitsch, 2015; Vinegar et al., 2016). Rather than treating ownership as a fixed legal category, scholars increasingly propose looking at property as a socially negotiated and relational process enacted through everyday practices of care, labor, and stewardship (Blomley, 2005; Morrow and Martin, 2019; Neo and Chua, 2017; Slavuj Borčić et al., 2016; van Holstein, 2016). In this context, food sharing initiatives have been described as simultaneously challenging, negotiating, and, at times, reproducing prevailing norms of ownership and propriety (Bonow and Normark, 2018; Egerer and Fairbairn, 2018).

Alongside these discussions, the concept of commoning has become increasingly influential in the food sharing literature (Bresnihan and Byrne, 2015; Devillers, 2023; Eizenberg, 2012; Follmann and Viehoff, 2015; Hennchen and Pregernig, 2020; Loh and Agyeman, 2019; Morrow, 2019b; Morrow and Martin, 2019). Rather than focusing on the ownership status of resources, commoning shifts analytical attention towards the collective practices through which resources are produced, governed, maintained, and shared. From this perspective, commons are understood not as fixed agreements but as social relations continually reproduced through cooperation, negotiation, and collective responsibility (Huron, 2015; Morrow and Parker, 2020; Williams and Tait, 2022). Urban food-sharing initiatives therefore become important empirical sites for examining how commons are created and sustained, as well as how they remain embedded within broader political, economic, and institutional structures (Bonow and Normark, 2018; Crossan et al., 2016; Rut and Davies, 2018; van Holstein, 2020).

Community gardens constitute one of the most extensively studied examples of food sharing as commoning. Frequently described as bottom-up responses to urban development, they have been associated with collective resilience, environmental stewardship, and experiments in more democratic forms of urban governance. (Biskupovic et al., 2022; Crossan et al., 2016; Filkobski et al., 2016; Ghose and Pettygrove, 2014; Hennchen and Pregernig, 2020; Kotsila et al., 2020; Shur-Ofry and Malcai, 2021). However, the literature consistently demonstrates that these initiatives rarely operate independently of formal property regimes. Instead, community gardens commonly rely on temporary leases, informal agreements with municipalities, or public funding, making them vulnerable to eviction, redevelopment, and policy change (Bonow and Normark, 2018; van Holstein, 2020; Apostolopoulou and Kotsila, 2022; Biazoti and Sorrentino, 2022; Celata and Coletti, 2018; Follmann and Viehoff, 2015; Montefrio et al., 2021; Thornton, 2017). Consequently, scholars argue that community gardens occupy an ambiguous position: while they seek to establish alternative relationships to land, they become dependent upon the very institutional arrangements they often seek to transform (Barron, 2017; Celata and Coletti, 2018; van Holstein, 2020).

This ambiguity is reflected in competing interpretations of the political significance of urban gardening. Some scholars portray community gardens as prefigurative spaces in which post-capitalist forms of cooperation and collective ownership are actively rehearsed (Apostolopoulou and Kotsila, 2022; Biazoti and Sorrentino, 2022; Biskupovic et al., 2022; David, 2017; Veen and Dagevos, 2019). Others adopt a more critical perspective, arguing that governments increasingly mobilize community gardening to transfer responsibility for green-space maintenance onto citizens while reducing public expenditure (Deflorian, 2023; Follmann and Viehoff, 2015; Pudup, 2008). Related critiques suggest that successful gardens may unintentionally contribute to neighborhood upgrading and green gentrification, ultimately reinforcing rather than challenging existing socio-spatial inequalities (Pudup, 2008; Tornaghi, 2017; Tornaghi, 2014).

Beyond their relationship with existing property regimes, the literature also highlights how commons generate their own internal systems of governance. Although community gardens are frequently presented as open and inclusive spaces, participation is often regulated through formal lease agreements and membership rules that dictate commitment, appropriate behavior, aesthetic standards, ecological knowledge, and community membership (Egerer and Fairbairn, 2018; Montefrio et al., 2021; van Holstein, 2016). In the absence of individual ownership, visible investments of labour and time become important markers of legitimacy, enabling participants to assert informal rights over shared space. These practices may generate subtle hierarchies, whereby newcomers or less established participants experience barriers to participation despite the collective ethos of the garden (Ghose and Pettygrove, 2014). Van Holstein (2016), for example, argues that everyday practices such as planting, fencing, or maintaining plots simultaneously constitute forms of gardening and claims to property. Building on this perspective, several scholars have shown that the trajectories of urban agriculture spaces are shaped by intersecting processes of race and class, as well as by the interactions between gardeners and non-gardeners. Within these spaces, tensions frequently emerge as gardeners negotiate competing objectives, particularly the balance between food production and the beautification of green spaces for leisure (Aptekar and Myers, 2020; Koopmans et al., 2017; Montefrio et al., 2021; Sovová and Veen, 2020). Similar tensions have been identified across studies of other urban food commons, which argue that openness is continually balanced against concerns for protection, stewardship, and appropriate conduct (Blomley, 2005; Morrow and Martin, 2019).

Questions of access and legitimacy similarly emerge in studies of other food sharing practices. Research on community fridges suggests that these infrastructures democratize access to rescued food through volunteer-led systems based on trust and collective responsibility rather than formal eligibility criteria specific to emergency food initiatives. Nevertheless, participation within these initiatives is also shaped by informal expectations. Responsibilities such as food collection, coordination, or maintenance are generally reserved for participants who have demonstrated reliability, commitment, and knowledge, thereby reproducing forms of informal authority within ostensibly open systems. These findings support existing claims that commons are not characterized by the absence of rules but rather by alternative modes of governance in which trust, responsibility, and care become central organizing principles.

Dumpster diving represents perhaps the most overtly challenging practice to dominant property regimes (Edwards and Mercer, 2007, 2012; Lehtonen and Pyyhtinen, 2021; Vinegar et al., 2016). By recovering edible food discarded by supermarkets and restaurants, dumpster divers contest both the legal foundations of private property and the moral legitimacy of food waste under conditions of persistent food insecurity (Clark, 2004; Vinegar et al., 2016). Scholars interpret these practices as forms of material critique that expose contradictions within capitalist systems of production and consumption, revealing how food continues to be treated as private property even after being discarded. At the same time, research complicates romanticized accounts of freeganism by demonstrating that participants are frequently highly educated, environmentally motivated, and socially privileged individuals whose ability to transgress property boundaries is itself shaped by race, class, and social status (Cornelissen, 2016; Lojdová, 2020; Watson et al., 2023). Similar observations emerge in studies of other urban food commons, where negotiated access to privately owned trees expands the urban commons while simultaneously revealing how assumptions about who may safely cross property boundaries remain structured by broader inequalities of race and class (Morrow and Martin, 2019).

The literature further shows that negotiations over property extend beyond land and food to encompass the use of social and institutional space. Community meals, shared kitchens, and food redistribution initiatives frequently occupy temporary or hybrid venues such as churches, community centers, cafés, and private homes (Caudwell et al., 2020; Marovelli, 2019). Transforming these spaces into sites of collective food sharing blurs conventional distinctions between public and private and challenges dominant understandings of ownership and access (Blomley, 2005; Swan, 2021). Veen and Dagevos (2019), for example, describe how home cooks voluntarily prepare meals for strangers, extending domestic spaces beyond the household. Such practices relocate labor traditionally confined to the private sphere into collective settings, illustrating how food sharing redefines property not only through access to material resources but also through the transfer of the fruits of labor through non-domestic spaces.

Terms of exchange: gift-giving and reciprocity

The literature analyzed positions food sharing initiatives as part of a broader landscape of alternative economic practices that seek to reconfigure food provisioning around principles of reciprocity rather than market exchange and profit maximization (Davies et al., 2017; Deflorian, 2023; Edwards and Davies, 2018; Immink, 2001; Loh and Agyeman, 2019; Lundström, 2023; Michelini et al., 2018; Morrow, 2019a; Murphy, 2019; Neo and Chua, 2017; Veen and Dagevos, 2019). Across diverse forms of food sharing—including urban gardening, communal meals, food redistribution networks, community fridges, and seed-sharing networks—the exchange of food, labor, space, and time is understood not simply as a material transaction but as a socially embedded practice organized through acts of giving and receiving (Davies et al., 2022; Davies and Evans, 2019; Pottinger, 2018). Donation-based models, pay-what-you-can cafés, solidarity payments, and freely distributed food are ubiquitous forms of transactions in food sharing initiatives. Some argue that these models represent attempts to decenter commercial logics of exchange and cultivate alternative moral economies grounded in cooperation (Berns et al., 2021a; Gracjasz and Grasseni, 2020; Loh and Agyeman, 2019; Murphy, 2019; Pyyhtinen and Lehtonen, 2023).

In this context, theories of gift exchange and reciprocity provide an important conceptual framework for understanding food sharing as a social relation rather than an economic transaction. Drawing on Mauss (1925/2002) and Sahlins (2017), scholars argue that gifts differ from commodities because they generate social obligations, symbolic meanings, and enduring relationships (Belk, 2010; Elder-Vass, 2020; Myers, 2013). Food-sharing initiatives described in the literature frequently mobilize gifting as a means of fostering trust and solidarity while challenging the commodification of food and social life (Gracjasz and Grasseni, 2020; Lindenbaum, 2016; Myers, 2013; Pottinger, 2018; Pyyhtinen and Lehtonen, 2023; Veen and Dagevos, 2019). From this perspective, the significance of food sharing lies not only in the redistribution of resources but also in the cultivation of social relations that extend beyond discrete acts of exchange.

At the same time, the literature questions romanticized understandings of gifting, as disinterested courtesy. Scholars have long argued that gifts can reinforce relations of dependency and unequal power, particularly when recipients have limited opportunities to reciprocate (Barnett and Land, 2007; Elster, 1989). Building on these critiques, a growing body of literature distinguishes institutional charity from more reciprocal forms of food redistribution. Myers (2013), for example, argues that anonymous redistribution systems based on surplus food often reinforce narratives of scarcity and dependency rather than abundance and collective ownership. By contrast, grassroots initiatives—including pay-as-you-feel cafés, community kitchens, solidarity networks, and peer-to-peer food sharing platforms—seek to cultivate more horizontal forms of exchange by encouraging direct engagement or minimal financial contribution (Gracjasz and Grasseni, 2020; Myers, 2013; Veen and Dagevos, 2019). Reciprocity within these initiatives is frequently symbolic rather than transactional, emphasizing shared over individualized calculations of value.

This distinction is particularly evident in studies of mutual aid food initiatives. Unlike conventional food aid systems that define participation primarily through material need, mutual aid initiatives often recognize broader forms of vulnerability, including loneliness, displacement, or social isolation, as legitimate reasons for participating. In this context, food sharing consequently becomes a means of expressing solidarity, empathy, and political commitment rather than simply alleviating hunger (Leetoy and Gravante, 2021; Phillips and Willatt, 2020). Participation commonly extends beyond receiving food to include volunteering, organizing events, maintaining infrastructures, and contributing to collective decision-making. In contrast to the clear separation between donors and recipients characteristic of charitable food aid, many grassroots initiatives encourage participants to become co-producers of the sharing infrastructure itself. In some cases, volunteers receive non-monetary forms of recognition, including early access to food or produce, illustrating how labor is valued through non-market transactions (Alexander, 2021; Bauwens and Kostakis, 2014; Berns et al., 2021a; Berns et al., 2021b).

Nevertheless, these initiatives also rely on shared expectations governing participation. Studies of community fridges, food redistribution events, and solidarity kitchens demonstrate that norms such as queuing, taking only what one needs, respecting volunteers, and contributing to collective care are integral to sustaining these systems (Berns et al., 2021a; Berns et al., 2021b). Such expectations are generally interpreted not as mechanisms of exclusion but as forms of collective self-governance intended to maintain trust, fairness, and conviviality within shared spaces (Phull et al., 2015; Wise and Noble, 2016).

The literature also identifies forms of food sharing that challenge conventional theories of gift exchange altogether. Dumpster diving represents a distinctive case because food is neither intentionally donated nor received from an identifiable giver. Instead, edible food is reclaimed from waste streams, disrupting established relationships between donors and recipients (Barnard, 2007; Pyyhtinen and Lehtonen, 2023). The absence of a conscious donor removes expectations of gratitude and indebtedness, allowing food to circulate through activist networks, communal households, and informal redistribution systems as acts of mutual aid. Rather than being understood as charitable gifts, discarded foods are re-socialized into new circuits of care and collective value that challenge dominant understandings of ownership, waste, and exchange. Studies consistently identify the sharing of surplus harvests as an expression of generosity that simultaneously prevents waste and strengthens social relationships (Berns et al., 2021b; Lojdová, 2020; Pottinger, 2018; Schanes and Stagl, 2019). Rather than being motivated primarily by political ideals, these exchanges often emerge from everyday practices of neighborliness and altruism (Capponi, 2020; Edwards and Mercer, 2007; Pyyhtinen and Lehtonen, 2023).

Urban growing and seed-sharing networks further broaden the conceptualization reciprocity by demonstrating that food sharing frequently extends beyond food itself to include plants, seeds and knowledge. Pottinger (2018) argues that such forms of sharing cultivate generalized reciprocity by expanding the circle of exchange and cultivating new subjectivities in which receiving becomes as important as giving for preserving genetic diversity. This perspective departs from more transactional interpretations of reciprocity by emphasizing the circulation of generosity rather than the repayment of individual debts.

The material qualities of what is shared also shape reciprocal relations. Whereas food is consumed once, plants and seeds require ongoing care and continual reproduction, extending reciprocal obligations across time and between human and more-than-human actors. Pottinger (2018) therefore conceptualizes seed sharers as “guardians” whose responsibility extends beyond distribution to the long-term stewardship and recirculation of living resources. Such findings suggest that reciprocity within food sharing initiatives is not only social but also ecological, grounded in practices of care that sustain both communities and the material resources upon which they depend.

Terms of engagement and maintenance: responsibility and care

Care has emerged as a central analytical concept in the food sharing literature, providing a framework for understanding the moral, affective, and material labor that sustains food-sharing initiatives. Rather than conceptualizing care solely as an emotional disposition of maintaining and repairing, scholars increasingly draw on the ethics of care to understand it as a relational practice concerned with maintaining, repairing, and sustaining communities, and environments (Puig de La Bellacasa, 2017; Tronto, 1993) (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011; Tronto, 1993). Within this perspective, care involves attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness, while recognizing the interdependence of individuals and the collective nature of social reproduction (Held, 2006; Tronto, 1993, 2013). Food sharing initiatives are therefore understood not merely as mechanisms for redistributing food but as infrastructures of care that create and sustain social reproduction through everyday practices of provisioning, maintenance and enjoyment.

A growing body of literature argues that food sharing extends practices of care beyond kinship and household relationships, creating opportunities for caring with and caring for human and more-than-human others (Phillips and Willatt, 2020; Pottinger, 2018; Williams and Tait, 2022). Through the organization of communal meals, food redistribution, community gardens, and other forms of collective provisioning, participants establish spaces that facilitate both material support and social encounter (Eizenberg, 2012; Ghose and Pettygrove, 2014; Hasanov et al., 2019; Immink, 2001; Ulug and Horlings, 2019). These initiatives seek not only to improve access to food but also to cultivate values of dignity, mutual recognition, reciprocity, solidarity, and belonging (Edwards, 2021; Marovelli, 2019). In this sense, food sharing initiatives embody an ethic of relational interdependence that contrasts with more individualized and transactional understandings of food provisioning (Morrow and Parker, 2020).

The literature also emphasizes the importance of care as a guiding principle in the creation and maintenance of material infrastructures that enable food sharing to occur. Community kitchens, gardens, food-sharing platforms, and community fridges require continual labor to organize, maintain, and repair the spaces through which food circulates. This work is frequently invisible yet essential to sustaining collective participation. Drawing on Puig de la Bellacasa's (2017) notion of care as maintenance and repair, scholars argue that these everyday practices—including cleaning, sorting food, maintaining equipment, coordinating volunteers, and preserving shared spaces—constitute political acts that sustain both common resources and the social relations built around them. Food sharing infrastructures are therefore understood as caring infrastructures that depend upon continuous collective labor as much as on the food they redistribute.

Studies of food redistribution initiatives illustrate how care is embedded in everyday practices of stewardship. Research on community fridges, for example, demonstrates that volunteers devote considerable effort to monitoring food quality, removing spoiled products, cleaning shared spaces, and ensuring that redistributed food remains safe for others (Morrow, 2019). These practices extend beyond compliance with food safety standards (Zurek, 2016); they represent forms of responsibility through which participants express care for unknown others. Similar forms of care have been documented within informal food rescue networks, where volunteers frequently invest more time and effort in sorting food intended for public redistribution than in selecting food for their own consumption (Morrow, 2019a; Morrow, 2019b). Such findings suggest that practices of maintenance, and quality control are central mechanisms through which trust is established within anonymous food sharing systems.

At the same time, the literature highlights tensions surrounding the distribution of responsibility and care within these initiatives. Maintaining food safety often requires participants to negotiate complex regulatory frameworks that assign legal responsibility to individuals rather than collectives, creating tensions between institutional governance and collective forms of care. In open-access systems such as community fridges, questions of liability frequently become points of negotiation between food sharing initiatives and public authorities, particularly where responsibility for redistributed food cannot easily be attributed to individual actors (Morrow, 2019a; Morrow, 2019b). These tensions demonstrate that caring practices are shaped not only by interpersonal relationships but also by broader legal and institutional arrangements that influence how responsibility can be enacted collectively.

Scholars further argue that care should not be understood as an inherently harmonious or universally benevolent practice. Rather, care is characterized by boundaries, asymmetries, and power relations that shape who provides care, who receives it, and under what conditions (Immink, 2001; Phillips and Willatt, 2020; Schroeder, 2006). Food sharing initiatives therefore continually negotiate the limits of care, balancing openness with practical constraints such as volunteer capacity, available resources, and food safety requirements. Care may become conditional, unevenly distributed, or embedded within relations of authority, reminding us that caring practices can simultaneously foster inclusion while reproducing forms of dependency or exclusion.

The literature also extends the ethics of care beyond interpersonal relationships to encompass care for food itself. Studies of food rescue and dumpster diving describe the emergence of informal conventions governing the respectful handling of rescued food, the maintenance of food quality, and relationships among participants. Edwards and Mercer (2012), for example, identify a “dumpster-diving etiquette” that establishes shared expectations regarding food handling, safety, and respect for other divers. These conventions not only facilitate practical cooperation but also reframe discarded food as something worthy of attention, stewardship, and collective responsibility. In doing so, they illustrate how care is enacted not only through relationships between people but also through practices of maintaining, protecting, and revaluing material resources that have been rendered disposable within conventional food systems.

In this paper we have engaged in an analysis of literature on urban food sharing to better understand the state-of-the-art around social norms in urban food sharing. The literature reviewed in this paper demonstrates that urban food sharing is a highly multidisciplinary field, drawing on anthropology, sociology, human geography, political ecology, urban studies, and critical food studies. Across these disciplines, food sharing initiatives (FSIs) have been examined through diverse methodological approaches, including ethnographic research, participatory action research, discourse analysis, and community-based case studies. The predominance of studies from Europe, the UK, Australia, and the United States shapes the normative themes identified and limits the extent to which they can be generalized across different cultural and institutional contexts.

Within this landscape, scholars have examined these practices not only as a response to food insecurity or social fragmentation but also as a socially and politically embedded practice through which social norms are negotiated and enacted. Although these initiatives commonly bring people together around the shared practice of producing, redistributing, or consuming food, they differ in the social norms they cultivate and the expectations they place on participants. Several studies suggest that these norms are shaped by both the logistical arrangements of food sharing and the affective dimensions of participation, which influence experiences of belonging, responsibility, and appropriate conduct (Swan, 2021; Wise, 2011). At the same time, we note that these regions are themselves culturally and socially diverse rather than homogeneous. Many of the food sharing initiatives examined operate within multicultural settings and are influenced by a range of cultural traditions, including those brought by migrant and diasporic communities. We also observe that much of the literature interprets food sharing as a response to broader processes associated with neoliberalism, privatization, consumerism, and the erosion of collective practices of care and hospitality. In this context, food sharing initiatives are often understood as attempts to cultivate or re-establish more collective forms of sociality and reciprocity. Nevertheless, normative expectations influence who participates, how food is exchanged, what forms of behavior are considered appropriate, and which ideals are prioritized or contested. Equally, food sharing initiatives mobilize, reinterpret, negotiate, and sometimes resist existing norms, thereby reshaping expectations surrounding participation, inclusion, reciprocity, sustainability, and care.

As a result of this review, four interrelated dimensions of social norms emerge as particularly significant: the terms of encounter, access, exchange, and engagement. Although analytically distinct, the literature also shows that these dimensions are deeply interconnected and together shape how food sharing initiatives organize participation, negotiate belonging, and propose alternative forms of sociality.

Within these dimensions, the literature reveals a range of normative tensions and negotiations, namely: norms of helping or being helped; the perceptions of abundance and scarcity during communal meals; shifting attitudes around freshness and edibility; concerns related to trust; safety, and hygiene; and the strategies of preserving dignity and autonomy in the act of sharing. These aspects are not only grounded in the immediate, localized environments in which food sharing occurs, but are also shaped by broader structural and institutional forces. In line with Frese's (2015) theory of norm formation and uptake, factors such as the socio-political climate, regulatory frameworks, interactions with public authorities, and prevailing discourses around food were shown to influence how food sharing norms are formed, reinforced, or contested.

Food-sharing initiatives are frequently interpreted as prefigurative spaces in which alternative social relations are rehearsed through everyday practice. By redistributing food outside capitalist logics, cultivating collective stewardship, blurring distinctions between hosts and guests, or organizing care through mutual aid, many initiatives seek to enact values associated with more just, sustainable, and democratic food systems. Rather than merely responding to food insecurity, they experiment with alternative ways of organizing economic exchange, governance, and social relations. The literature, to date, has not captured however, the degree to which these initiatives are having transformative effects beyond the initiatives themselves. We also acknowledge that alternative interpretations of gifting are well established in the wider literature on sharing (Belk, 2010; David, 2017; Elder-Vass, 2020; Myers, 2013) and have expanded the discussion to better recognize these tensions and the plurality of meanings that gifting may hold across different food sharing contexts (Evans, 2012; Lindenbaum, 2016).

Further, the literature on urban growing urges caution against romanticizing this transformative potential. Although many scholars frame food-sharing initiatives as sites of resistance to neoliberal food systems, others demonstrate that they frequently remain embedded within the institutional, political, and economic structures they seek to challenge. Dependence on voluntary labor, temporary access to land, charitable funding, municipal support, or permissive regulatory frameworks often constrains their autonomy. Community gardens may contribute to green gentrification, mutual aid initiatives may compensate for the retreat of public welfare, and caring infrastructures may rely upon unequal distributions of labor. Rather than existing outside capitalism or state governance, food-sharing initiatives frequently negotiate compromise alongside resistance.

This tension suggests that prefiguration should not be understood as evidence that food sharing initiatives have already transformed food systems. Instead, their significance lies in their capacity to create spaces in which norms, relationships, and subjectivities can be practiced, tested, and negotiated (Barron, 2017; Dombroski et al., 2023; Pudup, 2008; Ruiz Cayuela and Armiero, 2022; van Holstein, 2020). Their transformative potential emerges not from their permanence or scale but from their ability to experiment with different forms of hospitality, reciprocity, care, governance, and participation. In this sense, food sharing initiatives can function as laboratories of social possibility where dominant assumptions concerning food, ownership, exchange, and responsibility are continually questioned and reimagined (Cameron and Wright, 2014; Dombroski et al., 2019, 2023; Gritzas and Kavoulakos, 2016).

Although this growing body of scholarship has generated important empirical insights into food sharing, our review found that the concept of social norms often remains implicit or under-theorized. Rather than explicitly examining how norms are produced, negotiated, and transformed, studies frequently invoke concepts such as commensality, commoning, care, reciprocity, or solidarity as interpretive lenses. While each of these concepts illuminates particular aspects of the food sharing practice, they are rarely considered together as interconnected normative dimensions shaping collective food practices.

Our review also found that care practices were almost exclusively understood as positive. We note that in other bodies of literature, also related to food practices, care is more actively problematized in terms of, for example, distribution, labour, gender, race (Dengler and Plank, 2024; Pascucci, 2018; Phull et al., 2015; Plumwood, 2008; Warde et al., 2020). We see this as an important limitation in the literature on food sharing, particularly given its gendered dimensions. However, we also note that care can be both meaningful, engaging and affirming, while also uneven and precarious (Kotsila et al., 2020; Schroeder, 2006). Future research into food sharing norms could examine these dynamics, in all of their contradictions. Related, our review also identified that in the food sharing literature there is a clear normative bias towards highlighting what works and not insisting on the ample challenges, conflicts and tensions that exist within food sharing initiatives. Our own experience suggests that these initiatives are not devoid of conflict. Based on this research, we can only offer speculations as to why. One reason for this could be an ethical commitment by researchers to do no harm and thus not make visible dynamics which could harm the reputation of the initiatives under study. Another reason could be the normative position of the researchers who have an intellectual and/or personal investment in food sharing and thus have a bias towards showcasing the positive elements of these practices. Future research could explore the politics of studying FSIs as well as ethical ways to explore conflicts and tensions within these initiatives.

Overall, the literature demonstrates that food-sharing initiatives are best understood as sites of normative negotiation rather than inherently transformative or inherently reproductive spaces. They simultaneously challenge and reproduce dominant social norms; cultivate inclusion while establishing new boundaries; foster solidarity while generating new responsibilities; and enact alternative economies while remaining embedded within existing political and institutional arrangements. Understanding these tensions requires moving beyond individual theoretical frameworks towards an integrated analysis of how multiple normative dimensions interact in practice.