A metabolic history of manufacturing waste: food commodities and their outsides

Landecker, Hannah

doi:10.1080/15528014.2019.1638110

Cited by 38 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…For too long it had been enough to inveigh against the evils of stagnation and extol the blessings of circulation, in cities and hospitals as in aquaria (Vennen, 2018 ). Optimistic ontologies still guided the recycling of waste as animal feeds and nutrient media, and downplayed the toxicants that circulated as well (Landecker, 2019 ).…”

Section: Transformations Of Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicine

Hopwood

Müller‐Wille

Browne

et al. 2021

HPLS

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We invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theology and came to depend less on strictly circular forms. As potent ‘canonical icons’, cycles also interacted with representations of linear and irreversible change, including arrows, arcs, scales, series and trees, as in theories of the Earth and of evolution. In modern times life cycles and reproductive cycles have often been held to characterize life, in some cases especially female life, while human efforts selectively to foster and disrupt these cycles have harnessed their productivity in medicine and agriculture. But strong cyclic metaphors have continued to link physiology and climatology, medicine and economics, and biology and manufacturing, notably through the relations between land, food and population. From the grand nineteenth-century transformations of matter to systems ecology, the circulation of molecules through organic and inorganic compartments has posed the problem of maintaining identity in the face of flux and highlights the seductive ability of cyclic schemes to imply closure where no original state was in fact restored. More concerted attention to cycles and circulation will enrich analyses of the power of metaphors to naturalize understandings of life and their shaping by practical interests and political imaginations.

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Section: Transformations Of Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicine

Hopwood

Müller‐Wille

Browne

et al. 2021

HPLS

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show abstract

“…25 The massive therapeutic and nontherapeutic use of antibiotics proved central in food production, both to prevent and cure infections and to increase animal growth, laying the basis for far more efficient farming methods. 26 Indeed in 1949, a study pointed to the antibiotic growth effect, namely that the feeding of antibiotics at low levels to agricultural animals resulted in enhanced growth, 27 ultimately creating 'more food for all'. 28 Claas Kirchhelle has clearly shown how after World War II the agricultural use of antibiotics as growth promoters on farms in the United Kingdom and the United States allowed farmers to raise more heads of bigger chicken and pork in less time and less space.…”

Section: The Industrial Mobilization Of Microbial Metabolism and Malthusian Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Antibiotic resistance, planetary health and the mimetic trap: a historical account of present-day sanitary, environmental and social crises

D’Abramo

2021

Postcolonial Studies

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The industrialization of food production over the past century has triggered a series of sanitary crises related to antibiotic resistance. In this article, I contend that to understand the radical transformation of animal farming and its effects on public health, we need to inquire into the historical development of the knowledge on microbes, especially with regard to the agricultural industry's mobilization and repression of microbial metabolism to scale up food production. Moreover, I conceive of the so-called Great Acceleration of the Anthropocene as a postcolonial mimetic trap through which actors who didn't play an active role in the contemporary ecological collapse are subsumed into an indistinct 'we'. To disentangle this alleged collective subject created from accounts of planetary health, I focus on the scientific, social, and institutional histories of antibiotic production and antibiotic use that materialized in the epidemiological issue of antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, I highlight how the history of antibiotic use and resistance is intertwined with the ecological, social, and geopolitical dynamics created by intense industrial production and international rivalries during the Cold War. This article calls for the re-evaluation and creation of counter-narratives of the planetary impact of industry on microbes, local communities, patients, medical personnel, and the global poor.

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“…It may be an ironic coincidence that the best examples of recycling from food waste involve the worst aspects of industrial livestock production to which these alternative proteins respond. In her glimpse into the long history of using beet pulp, fish heads, and corncobs as animal feed, Landecker (2019) writes it "came hand in hand with new adjuvants intended to correct for the nutrient deficiencies, non-palatability, or disease susceptibilities engendered by new feeding regimes," (531) which had a host of attendant public health and environmental consequences. For that matter, Blanchette's (2020) profound examination of industrial pork reveals that "mission-driven" entrepreneurs are far from unique in their dedication to making use of waste.…”

Section: On Promissory De-materializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magical disruption? Alternative protein and the promise of de-materialization

Guthman

Biltekoff

2020

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

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Along with seeking to eliminate the inhumane conditions and slaughter involved in animal protein production, alternative protein companies aspire to ameliorate its environmental impacts. They claim to do so by making edible protein from (nearly) nothing, drawing on abundant or mundane resources that will presumably not be missed or have no negative externalities, or “upcycling” byproducts that would otherwise be wasted—to de-materialize in other words. At the same time, these entrepreneurs promise their substitutes will be nutritionally analogous to or better than animal-based proteins and have only salubrious effects on human bodies. Drawing on data collected on alternative protein companies that are based in or have come through Silicon Valley, this article catalogs and examines company representations of their various de-materialization promises. We find that attempting to meet the tripartite, yet competing imperatives of Silicon Valley innovation, namely disruption, transparency, and secrecy, results in representations of processes that obfuscate more than they reveal. The resulting obfuscation is not simply the intentional veiling of pernicious processes; more than selling specific food products, Silicon Valley food tech entrepreneurs aspire to bring a new food system into being and convince their audiences that this food future is both better and achievable. Nevertheless, their representational practices make it difficult, if not impossible, for the public—or anyone really—to meaningfully assess the promises and their potential consequences, much less hold their proponents accountable to anything but pecuniary concerns.

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A metabolic history of manufacturing waste: food commodities and their outsides

Cited by 38 publications

References 39 publications

Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicine

Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicine

Antibiotic resistance, planetary health and the mimetic trap: a historical account of present-day sanitary, environmental and social crises

Magical disruption? Alternative protein and the promise of de-materialization

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