Deferred eating: An ethnography of hunger, waiting, and food insecurity in the floating labor markets of Dhaka, Bangladesh

This ethnography examines deferred eating among floating day laborers who gather at open-air morning hiring sites ( labor bazar ) across Dhaka, Bangladesh. We define deferred eating as the temporally structured postponement, thinning, or suppression of eating during the hiring window to remain visible and available for work before wages are earned. Drawing on long-term fieldwork supplemented by a background survey of 749 laborers, we show food insecurity is produced not only within households but also through the temporal and social organization of the hiring ground. Workers rely on tea stalls, informal credit, and food sharing to endure waiting, while older workers, recent migrants, less-skilled laborers, and women experience the longest and least buffered deferrals. Hunger is also morally negotiated, as workers avoid expressing need directly and insist they are workers, not beggars. Deferred eating identifies a mechanism through which precarious labor becomes embodied hunger, extending food insecurity research beyond household consumption.