Concealed kindness : stories of volunteering in a food rescue organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

This thesis focuses on an Aotearoa-based food rescue organisation; a form of food charity that ostensibly rescues ‘waste’ food from landfill and redirects it to community groups. I was interested in the motivations of those who chose to volunteer at this organisation, as well as the duality of environmentalism alongside charitable work. I was surprised to find that the volunteers were much more focused on providing food to those in need than on the environmental mission. Much of the literature on food charity is focused on reciprocity and Mauss’ (1925/1990) ‘the gift’, especially how the inability of charity recipients to reciprocate gift exchanges places them in a position of social debt and can therefore create stigma and shame. Based on participant-observation and semi-structured interviews, I use Clara Han’s (2012) concepts of concealed kindness and mischief, to argue that the organisation instead uses its environmental purpose to allow food charity recipients to participate in the reduction of food waste instead of being forced to accept a gift they cannot reciprocate, thereby preventing the creation of stigma. Previous literature on volunteering has suggested that volunteers accumulate capital through their actions. However, the concealed nature of this voluntary labour and the fact that no direct reciprocal relationship is established between volunteers and participants meant that this did not align with my participants’ experience. I use Ghassan Hage’s (2025) concept of the augmentation of social being to argue that instead they are building satisfying and fulfilling lives for themselves through volunteering without any detrimental effect on recipients. Moreover, this work brings them joy.