Discomfort food : how a market for synthetic foods is being assembled : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Geography at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Loading...
Date
2017
DOI
Open Access Location
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Massey University
Rights
The Author
Abstract
This research follows the discursive productions of human actors in an assemblage that is creating a
market for Synthetic Foods. This assemblage, which includes human actants referred to here as The
Movement, is represented in two major empirical themes. First it is demonstrated how The
Movement is attempting to immaterially disassemble conventional Animal Agriculture, by
discursively cleaving it from the notion that it produces natural foods. Second it is shown how The
Movement is constructing a new market for natural foods, where animal products are made without
animals. The non-human actors of this assemblage are said to be enrolled but this belies the multiple
levels of negotiation that are yet to take place. Through collecting and analysing the media
productions of The Movement, the discursive performances and relational spaces that constitute
this assemblage can be traced. Through tracing these material and immaterial practices the main
argument developed here is that a market for Synthetic Foods is being culturally assembled in a
series of discursive productions. The Movements discursive texts show an attempt to both, requalify
what natural foods are said to be and then to simultaneously create a spectacle that fixes the
identities of actors that supposedly produce them. This can be understood using a Cultural Economy
approach which extends the argument by demonstrating that this market assemblage recombines
nature with its binary other, culture, in a new way, to form a differently constituted world.
Description
Images redacted from thesis for copyright reasons
Keywords
Artificial foods, Marketing, Social aspects, Research Subject Categories::SOCIAL SCIENCES::Business and economics::Human geography, economic geography, Cultural economy, Assemblage, Non-human, Nature-culture binary, Food, Animal agriculture, Cultured meat, Synthetic foods, Discourse