The Transformational Potential of Cooking and Growing for People with Custodial and Non-Custodial Sentences at LandWorks: A case study

In this chapter I draw upon over eight years of funded research projects at a pioneering, award-winning, independent, and part community-funded, prisoner resettlement and rehabilitation scheme (https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://www.LandWorks.org.uk">www.LandWorks.org.uk), which works with prisoners eleased on temporary licence (ROTL) and others referred through probation, collectively referred to as trainees. The research data includes over 150 interview transcripts and detailed ethnographic field notes. Although these are often not explicitly focused on everyday foodways, at the heart of the working day for those on placement at LandWorks is a shared lunchtime meal. This is usually prepared on site (outside of the COVID-19 era), often with ingredients grown at the scheme and eaten together around a table. Moreover, LandWorks began in 2013 as a project committed to using growing and sharing as tools of social inclusion, which developed into growing, sharing, and cooking together once cooking facilities were established at the site in 2015. Overall, a key element of LandWorks’ success in reducing recidivism and finding employment for its trainees is based on a strengths-based approach to resettlement, which makes use of a range of on-site activities in order to enhance self-esteem, self-confidence, and develop trusting relationships with its trainees; this includes growing and cooking, but also associated activities related to commensality (eating together around a table). This chapter highlights the significance of these activities for developing social and cultural capital for people on placement at LandWorks as they work towards change.