Don't Bring Back the Plague! A Posthuman Approach to the Food Crisis and Its Ideological Predicament - 66-84

Abstract

Eating insects has been an ongoing topic raised in different contexts: as an exotic meal, as a solution to world hunger, as an answer to ecological-environmental issues and even as a fashion trend. We have recently seen approved the proposal for the use of two insects (cricket and beetle larva) as marketable food by the European Commission, making a total of four (if we include the migratory locust and the mealworm), in what seems like a great leap in environmental and ecological matters. These decisions are intended to face world hunger, implement a more eco-sustainable diet and reduce the impact of the ecological footprint. Truth is, sometimes they turn out to be western capitalist greenwashing. It would be important to examine the underlying implications of these measures to address the possibility we might be ignoring some background of domination, exploitation or even racism, as well as reactions evoked in the obscene playground of cultural battles. As Derrida would say, nowadays we eat the other. If so, the question for the otherness takes on a radically posthuman dimension. In this brief article, we will analyze this proposal from three perspectives: the role insect-eating plays in the spectacular logic of commodities, the reactionary viewpoints against it, and the status of insects as otherness. Thus, this article won’t focus on the current sustainable alternatives to the food crisis, instead we aim to point out some symptoms in these absurd measures. Would it be too bold to question whether, from an Abrahamic eschatology, we are not invoking the plague ourselves?