Cultured meat in between Anthropocene crises

A perspective from ecological feminism

Abstract

 Cultured meat is an emerging food technology that promises to revolutionise not only meat production techniques but also the relations between human beings and other animals, and the rest of the biosphere. Cultured meat might be read as a food innovation for the Anthropocene, since it addresses ecological, health and inter-species issues that characterise this historical phase and its problematisation. I propose a reading of the potentiality and pitfalls of this emerging technology based on a perspective of political ecology, which I believe fundamental in highlighting the social shaping of innovation and its embeddedness in wider symbolic and material dynamics shaped by power. In particular, I engage with feminist debates over science, technology, inter-species relations and the issue of ecological crisis to put into light the highly ambivalent nature of this “hybrid” object. Given this complexity, I argue for a methodological approach to technoscience innovation and the shaping of future food imaginaries that draws on processes of mapping to stay close to marginal, unrepresented, and yet politically crucial voices.