Making Space in Critical Environmental Geography for the Metabolic Rift

Sustainability and Metabolic Revolution in the Works of Henri Lefebvre

“…This radical vision of sustainability based on the theory of metabolic rift stands in contrast to narrower conceptions of "environmental" sustainability that have tended to diverge from concerns with social and environmental justice, even as the ongoing global consolidation of the capital system undermines both [6,38,39]. Unfortunately, the materialist dialectic of the metabolic rift has not always been adequately understood, especially in more constructivist realms of critical inquiry, closing off keen insights for understanding ecological crisis and potential futures [40]. In part, this is due to an opposition to material-dialectical approaches, which often reflects a tendency to conflate Marx's critique with the object of that critique.…”

Pathogenic Metabolisms: A Rift and the Zika Virus in Mato Grosso, Brazil

“…However, such studies—some more intentionally than others—reify the notion that infectious diseases are diseases of the urban poor. To expand the spatial and scalar focus of such studies beyond the urban, I bring the observations of political ecologists of health (Carter 2014; Ferring and Hausermann 2019; King 2017) into closer conversation with conceptualisations of metabolism and metabolic rifts (Clark and York 2008; Connolly 2019; Connolly et al 2020; Napoletano et al 2019). While theories of metabolism are useful for understanding the spread of infectious diseases, identifying metabolic rifts can push scholars to better recognise how changes in the relationships between urban and rural spaces can rupture ecologies in ways that make the emergence and transmission of certain diseases more likely.…”

“…In his critique of capitalism, Marx saw metabolic rifts as inherent to the system. In particular, the social metabolism of capitalist societies is based upon the subordination and rapid depletion of nature in an endless pursuit of growth and profit (Clark and York 2008; Napoletano et al 2019). Marx first observed a metabolic rift in his examinations of capitalist agriculture in the 1800s.…”

The influence of emergency food aid on the causal disaster vulnerability of remote Indigenous food systems: a case study of the Bedamuni of Western Province, Papua New Guinea

“…Historical unsustainability (economic, ecological, political) can be observed through evidence of collapse or disintegration of complex societies, species extinctions, and ecosystem degradation (e.g., Dirzo et al 2014, Haberle 2007, Kirch 2005. The concept of metabolic rift 1 , originally developed by Karl Marx (1981[1894), has been utilised to describe the increasingly unsustainable use of natural resources due to, among other things, the extractive and non-regenerative nature of land use under capitalist political economy (see Napoletano et al 2019, Bezner Kerr et al 2019. The above demonstrates sustainability, and therefore stability of ecosystem services, is essentially a normative goal, which while requiring ecological knowledge is primarily a social, economic, and political process.…”

“…Socioecological reproduction (see Marco et al 2020) is premised on such things as culture, resource availability, and political economy. Just as changes to long-term climate impact, and necessitate adaptation within, social systems, changes to political economy and culture drives changes in ecological systems (Napoletano et al 2019).…”