This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Eating for the post-Anthropocene Alternative proteins, Silicon Valley and the (bio)politics of food security Sexton, Alexandra Elizabeth Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 06. Oct. 2021 Eating for the post-Anthropocene: Alternative proteins, Silicon Valley and the (bio)politics of food security Alexandra E. Sexton PhD thesis Department of Geography (Arts) King’s College London January 2018 This thesis is dedicated to the memories of my grandma Marjorie Meredith and granny Nancy Sexton – two amazing and fiercely intelligent women. I wish I could have finished this in time to show you both. 2 Abstract This thesis explores the emergence of a new generation of alternative proteins (APs) – including cellular agriculture, edible insects and plant-based proteins – that aim to provide more sustainable, healthy and ethical alternatives to conventional livestock products. It examines APs within the broader context of Anthropocenic debates, situating this activity as a reaction to contemporary food-related ‘crises’ and, ultimately, as solutions for global food security. Drawing on interviews, policy analysis and visceral autoethnographic work in the leading hubs of recent AP activity in Europe and the US, the thesis demonstrates how APs both reinforce (‘simulate’) and challenge (‘disrupt’) the existing imaginaries, materialities and political economic factors of the global food system. Through exploring this negotiation between simulation and disruption, the thesis critically examines the enthusiastic and at-times bombastic promissory narratives that have characterised the sector to date. It calls into question to whom and in what ways APs cause disruption, arguing that while they have indeed disturbed the geographies, actors and practices involved in protein production, the political economic underpinnings of the global food system (i.e. inequality, bio-corporatisation, Western- based power) remain largely intact. Drawing on Foucauldian thought, the thesis also argues that APs represent a new site of food biopolitics – introduced as the ‘biopolitics of edibility’ – through which we see a continuation of consumer responsibilisation wherein personal food choice acts as a means for creating a better self and planet. By analysing the material and discursive strategies used to make APs into ‘food’, the thesis also explores these products as an important case for thinking through the material and visceral (bio)politics of eating, as well as the limits of disgust and mistrust posed by food-technology interactions and the precarious relationship between (non)human bodies. Through its theoretical and empirical contributions, the thesis intervenes in critical food geography by bringing together recent debates on the geographies of production and consumption, the material and visceral politics of eating, and the biopolitics of food. It also engages with economic geography and STS theorisations of innovation to think through the material and promissory trajectories that APs have taken to date. Through examining the negotiation of simulation and disruption, the recent AP movement is problematised as both entangled and implicit in politics around ‘good’ eating and the individualised project of Anthropocenic solutions. 3 Table of Contents List of figures and images ............................................................................................................................ 8 Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................................. 9 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 1 | Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 12 1.1 The ‘proteins of tomorrow’ .................................................................................................................... 12 1.2 Research questions and objectives ..................................................................................................... 16 1.2.1 Situating APs ............................................................................................................................................... 16 1.2.2 Materialising biopolitics ........................................................................................................................ 19 1.2.3 The visceral biopolitics of APs ............................................................................................................. 21 1.3 Thesis outline ............................................................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER 2 | Setting the scene: The ‘new’ proteins .......................................................................... 26 2.1.1 Cellular agriculture .................................................................................................................................. 26 2.1.2 Insects ............................................................................................................................................................. 30 2.1.3 Plant-based proteins ................................................................................................................................ 31 2.2 Conversations so far: A review of AP scholarship ........................................................................ 33 2.2.1 Prospects and challenges I: Cultured meat ................................................................................... 34 2.2.2 Prospects and challenges II: Insects and plant-based proteins ........................................... 36 2.2.3 Consumer acceptance and the ‘yuck’ factor ................................................................................. 38 2.2.4 Spatial and ethical (re)imaginings ................................................................................................... 40 2.2.5 Critical viewpoints: Unpacking the promises of APs ................................................................. 42 2.3 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 3 | Literature review ............................................................................................................... 47 3.1 Situating APs in agri-food debates: From structural Marxism to the consumer turn ... 47 3.1.1 APs as simulation of, and disruption to, current agri-food practices ............................... 52 3.2 Food and eating in the Anthropocene: A responsibilised era .................................................. 55 3.2.1 Anxious eating ............................................................................................................................................ 55 3.2.2 Turning to tech (again) .......................................................................................................................... 59 3.2.3 A new (geological) age of anxiety ..................................................................................................... 60 3.3 ‘Good eating’ and ‘good eaters’: The biopolitics of food ............................................................. 65 3.3.1 The art of governing ................................................................................................................................ 66 3.3.2 Techniques and technologies of power ........................................................................................... 68 3.3.3 Eating biopolitics: Mechanisms of responsibilisation .............................................................. 71 3.3.4 Biopolitics in reverse: More-than-docile bodies .......................................................................... 77 4 3.4 The (bio)politics of taste and edibility: Food as more-than-consumption......................... 80 3.4.1 The making of taste .................................................................................................................................. 81 3.4.2