Jessica Hardin

This workshop connects scholars from cultural, biosocial, historical and archaeological traditions in anthropology to interrogate metabolic (in)justice, a structuring device for stimulating trans-disciplinary dialogue and debate (Chao 2023). This concept intervenes at this critical juncture as industrial activities threaten life conditions at a planetary scale and global experts express growing concern about how to feed the world amidst political and ecological unraveling. Metabolic (in)justice connects two long-standing anthropological concerns: 1) pathways of exposure and absorption between bodies and worlds (metabolism) (Paxon 2023, Solomon 2016) and 2) the ethical politics of making life liveable across scales and sites (justice) (Simpson 2020; Chao, Bolender, Kirksey 2022). This framework will advance anthropological investigation into the intersections of biopolitical and social life, the human and more-than-human, and the material and metaphorical as these are mediated by differentially positioned and privileged guts. Bringing a materials focus into conversation with nourishment promises a new way of thinking about the “metabolism of the economy” that speaks to wider anthropological concerns about how to design new futures (Escobar 2018). To this end, the workshop will collectively advance strategies for bringing anthropological expertise to bear upon urgent and longstanding policy debates about how to nourish our communities and worlds.