Fitting It In: Temporalities of Collaborative Research on Campus Food Insecurity

In this article we reflect upon recursive temporalities that shaped collaborative work on campus food insecurity. Our research examined disparities in access to food and dining services in order to understand the strategies college students use to mitigate the challenges of obtaining food and to develop suggestions to reduce the prevalence of food insecurity at our school. This collaborative endeavor and our research findings are both framed by perceptions and limitations of time. Within our team, we navigated semester turnover, cyclical incorporation of student researchers, competing commitments, and different time frames for quantitative and qualitive data collection and analysis. Our research participants—college students—juggled multiple responsibilities and experienced temporal shifts by semester, advancement through their school years, and housing changes that significantly impacted their food practices. Time constraints and conflicting temporal rhythms shaped our research and contextualized student engagements with food, creating challenges for conducting collaborative research and for students' everyday access to meals. We argue for a reflexive consideration of the multiple temporalities, countertempos, and hidden rhythms that shape collaboration and contextualize research conducted on college campuses.