Planetary Cancer:
Growth, Economy and Culture in an Era of Climate Catastrophe
Saturday 9 March 2013
One of the challenges in attempting a cross-faculty, interdisciplinary conference lies
in communicating the relevance of a literature-led discussion to other departments and
disciplines.
However, we were pleased to be able to present papers from Social Sciences, Life
Sciences and Arts faculties, as well as a non-academic talk from campaigning
organisation, War on Want.
The presentations offered a world-historical perspective, focusing on case studies
from Thailand, Latin America, the USA, UK, Germany and India, alongside
interconnecting research exploring environmental reflexivity, land grabbing,
sustainable palm oil certification, Pixar films, food sovereignty and the human/nature
dialectic.
A further challenge lay in trying to hold together many disparate approaches. We
programmed substantial discussion time at the end of each panel to try and facilitate
this. We were also helped by Jason W. Moore’s outstanding keynote lecture, ‘The
End of Cheap Food and Peak Appropriation: The Great Recession in WorldEcological Perspective’, which set the foundation for the day and provided insight
into the perspectives and case studies that followed.
His talk outlined some of the characteristics of capitalism in relation to food security,
pointing out, for example, the role of manufactured crises of under consumption in
accumulation mechanisms. The ‘end of cheap food’, in Moore’s view, is not
symptomatic of ecological limitations but rather economic ones, hence his theory of
‘peak accumulation’.
Moore’s dialectical methodology – of seeing the ecosystem as “bundles of human and
extra-human natures” –helped to facilitate fruitful discussion of the overarching theme
of global food security and its relationship to capitalism. His talk also referenced a
recent report by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers which estimates 30-50% of
food produced globally fails to reach a human stomach, not only due to systemic
inefficiencies, but because mechanisms of profit accumulation require waste.
Positive models were discussed, from community-organised farming co-operatives to
agroecological systems of food production. War on Want’s food sovereignty
campaign offered an account of on-going actions to reclaim control of land use and
food distribution to reflect the interests of agricultural producers and the ecosystems
which we all rely on.
Identifying modes of resistance and models of regulation will take longer to emerge
than a single, day-long conference can provide, but we hope the inspirational
atmosphere of the day will lead to further conferences, discussions and publications to
push forward a vital and urgent dialogue.
Chris Maughan & George Ttoouli