"Trying to get out of the hole": Communicative resilience and sensemaking among adults experiencing food insecurity and economic precarity

Salmeron, Irma Sofia

Item

"Trying to get out of the hole": Communicative resilience and sensemaking among adults experiencing food insecurity and economic precarity

Salmeron, Irma Sofia

Date

2025-04-24

Abstract

47 million Americans are food insecure (Feeding America, 2025). Working class individuals are likely to be threatened by food insecurity (Dougherty, 2018). Therefore, this study focuses on the lived experience of individuals who are employed, in order to better understand the threat of food insecurity on the average American. This study examined food insecurity, and precarity through the lenses of sensemaking (Weick, 1995), and communicative theory of resilience (Buzzanell 2010). This study proposed that individuals experiencing economic hardships that result in food insecurity go through the Sensemaking process which aids in building resilience. Rationalization through dreaming, and universalizing allow individuals to make sense and enact resilience. Furthermore, this study revisited the roles of disruption, the connection between underemployment and sensemaking, and the role of networks.