Research

How things become food: towards a theory of edibility

How can novel alternative proteins become accepted and popularised as Western foods? How can Western diets adapt to include species ‘arriving’ following climate change or exclude those disappearing? How can edible things usually seen as waste become part of Western diets? Such questions are vital to achieve sustainability in Western food systems, which have significant negative impacts on planetary and public health. Central to such questions is eating differently, a major issue for any changes to Western food systems. Yet to understand and govern eating differently, two key questions must be answered: How do potential foodstuffs become transformed, culturally and practically, into food? And how does the categorisation of things as food change – and end – over time?

While this process of ‘things becoming food’ is crucial for sustainable eating, it is still not fully understood. Relevant research is scattered across different disciplinary literatures, providing valuable but partial insights. However, developing research on the geographies of edibility addresses this process directly, exploring how the edibility of things – their categorisation as food – is established, maintained and changes. This research shows how a wide range of actors and practices across spatial/temporal scales are involved in things successfully becoming food. However, social science still lacks a systematic theoretical account of edibility: how things become food, and how this is maintained and changes. A theory addressing these issues would be a crucial ‘missing link’ for efforts to understand and govern fundamental food system change, as well as for efforts to produce, regulate and govern safe, healthy and sustainable foods more broadly. My project addresses this need. Building on case studies of things becoming food, disrupted as food, and ceasing to be food, it aims to develop a theoretical account of how edibility works.

REPLACE: Meat replacement and systems of edibility in Asia and beyond

The project explores meat replacement in Eastern Asia, a key but understudied region in research on meat replacement, alternative protein products and the 'protein transition'. Focusing on a range of meat replacers such as plant-based meat analogues, insects and lab-grown meat, the project zooms in on two key but highly different case countries in Southeast Asia: a main innovation hub and important market (Singapore) and a late industry entry and emerging market (Vietnam). It explores both novel meat replacement products and more established meat-free eating practices, seeking a deep understanding of how things become qualified as edible, desirable and culturally appropriate food, how meat replacement may work in practice, and how food becomes food more broadly. I will contribute primarily to the Singapore fieldwork and analysis, as well as the project's goal of developing a 'systems of edibility' approach to theorising how the classification of food is shaped by broader social, technological and political-economic forces. REPLACE is led by Professor Arve Hansen at the University of Oslo's Centre for Global Sustainability, with partners at Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and the University of Southampton.

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