The Rise of Nonhumanism: Mutli-Species Justice in the Food System

Keywords: necropolitics, food, multispecies, justice
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 18

Abstract

Many geographers study ethical diets but most are curiously silent on the topic of death in the food system, specifically what or who is allowed to live and what is let die in the "doing of good". This paper aims to show how the practices of eating ethically produce the socio-ecological harm most consumers set out to avoid with their dietary choices. I examine the food systems that produce commodities for 1) the hierarchical ordering of consumer health in the Global North over the health and well-being of workers in the Global South and 2) how vegetarianism involves the implicit privileging of some animals over overs. This project will take a genealogical approach, drawing on Mbembe (2016) Foucault’s (2003, 2008) biopolitics and Agamben’s (1998) "allowable death" to develop a conceptual framework for what lives or dies as a result of ethical dietary choices. I use this framework to examine commodities for the socio-ecological harm their production extends into the world under the guise of "doing good" or "being ethical." Taking a harm reduction and Indigenous food sovereignty approach, I advocate for a new ethical framework that addresses the role of multi-species justice in the food system.