Never in Your Favour: Precarity, Trust, and Consumption in Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games Trilogy.

This article analyzes Suzanne Collins's *The Hunger Games* trilogy through the lens of trust theory, focusing on how the authoritarian Capitol maintains control not primarily through fear but by denying its citizens the ability to form trust bonds. Central to this strategy is the Capitol’s manipulation of foodways—both the physical control of food and the cultural meanings surrounding its consumption—which undermines interpersonal, intrapersonal, and institutional trust within Panem’s districts. The trilogy portrays children and adolescents as both vulnerable bodies subjected to this control and as agents capable of reclaiming trust and identity through embodied, communal food practices linked to nature. Ultimately, the narrative reveals a complex interplay of dystopian precarity and utopian potential, where rebuilding trust through shared consumption and solidarity becomes key to resistance and social transformation.