Of fake meat and an anxious Anthropocene: towards a cultural political economy of alternative proteins and their implications for future food systems

Sexton, A. E. and Goodman, M. K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4861-029X (2022) Of fake meat and an anxious Anthropocene: towards a cultural political economy of alternative proteins and their implications for future food systems. In: Sage, C. (ed.) A Research Agenda for Food Systems. Elgar, London, pp. 175-197. ISBN 9781800880252 doi: 10.4337/9781800880269.00018

Abstract/Summary

This chapter considers the rise of alternative proteins (APs) and their current and potential impacts on food systems. Using the conceptual lens of cultural political economy, we analyse APs through two separate ‘moments’. First, we explore the promissory narratives and resistances APs have encountered as they have been marketised and mainstreamed. Here we pay particular attention to the ways that the narratives of urgency, anxiety and crisis, plus the scale of livestock-related problems in the Anthropocene, have (re)authorised Big Food’s role in delivering sustainable food systems. Our second moment is more speculative. Refracted through philosophical and geographical treatments of APs, we explore the ethical, material and spatial implications of cell-cultured meat and ask what is disrupted and what is maintained through this particular version of doing meat differently. We conclude with questions for future research on APs in the context of the changing contours of the food system.

Item Type	Book or Report Section
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/108610
Identification Number/DOI	10.4337/9781800880269.00018
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science
Publisher	Elgar
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