Many Meats and Many Milks? The Ontological Politics of a Proposed Post-animal Revolution

• Published in: Science as culture Vol. 28; no. 1; pp. 70 - 97
• Main Authors: Jönsson, Erik, Linné, Tobias, McCrow-Young, Ally
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.01.2019; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Agrarian structures; Agricultural Biotechnology; Agricultural production; Agricultural Sciences; Animals; Annan humaniora; Biotechnology; Bioteknologi med applikationer på växter och djur; Food; Genetics; Humaniora och konst; Humanities; Kulturgeografi; Laboratories; Lantbruksvetenskap och veterinärmedicin; Livestock; Meat; Milk; Ontological politics; Ontology; Other Humanities; Other Humanities not elsewhere specified; Political systems; Politics; Social and Economic Geography; Övrig annan humaniora
• ISSN: 0950-5431; 1470-1189; 1470-1189
• DOI: 10.1080/09505431.2018.1544232

Today plant-based alternatives to animal-agricultural products are made available or developed alongside 'cultured' meat, and products utilising genetic modification. To proponents, this signifies the emergence of 'cellular agriculture' as a food-production field or the possibility of a 'post-animal bioeconomy': a way to safely and sustainably produce animal products without animals. Drawing on previous work on ontological politics enables acknowledging how these novel objects unsettle animal products' ontological stability, thereby offering a practical case of how the world is multiply produced. An important emphasis within this tradition is the situated nature of reality-making practices. Consequently our analysis, focusing on different practices, sites and objects compared to influential studies of ontological politics, necessitates bringing in hitherto relatively unexplored political-economic relations and legal processes. As global processes and problem formulations, laboratories, and national or regional regulations come together to remake realities the ontological-political dynamics determining the fate of cellular agriculture or a post-animal bioeconomy becomes shaped by a combination of conflicts and budding collaborations between proponents of new technologies and established livestock interests. Understanding these dynamics requires tracing both how post-animal products reshape the world they are introduced into, and acknowledging the friction evident as reality-carrying objects leave their laboratories.