“Food is a right, not a privilege” (“Essen ist ein Recht - kein Privileg”): Contesting urban food insecurity through direct action at a Viennese Küfa

In the context of prefigurative politics, a key question incessantly remains: How can we live in solidarity and support each other interdependently without creating any forms of hierarchical dependency? Certain anarchist actions provide a blueprint for a different kind of society, one founded on mutual aid rather than formal power structures. To explore this, we focus on a case study of a KüFA (“Kitchen for All”) in Vienna, Austria. We examine how the KüFA, as a microcosm where alternative social relations are both forged and contested, addresses food insecurity linked to urban poverty among vulnerable populations. Operating on a solidarity-not-charity philosophy, horizontal organization, and direct action, this initiative provides free vegan food near a local day center. This practice challenges welfare state shortcomings and embodies prefigurative politics by attempting to actualize alternative social structures in the present. Based on two months of ethnographic fieldwork from late January to late March 2025, our research explores how solidarity is actualized through compromise and commitment within this anarchist food kitchen. The study scrutinizes how the community at this initiative negotiates the gap between its ideals and daily operations, addressing internal disagreements, activist burnout, difficulties achieving full inclusivity, establishing boundaries, handling conflicts, and balancing anti-authoritarian goals with the emergence of informal leadership structures. In doing so, the study highlights the everyday negotiations essential for maintaining the mutual aid initiative, particularly regarding interactions with people experiencing homelessness. The paper thus sheds light on how solidarity is polyrhythmic and constructed through daily compromises within Vienna’s grassroots activist scene, providing a window into the practical realities of mutual aid efforts.