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Cricket Capitalism: Taste, Labor, and the Future of Food
Cricket Capitalism: Taste, Labor, and the Future of Food
상세정보
- 자료유형
- 학위논문 서양
- 최종처리일시
- 20260202104725
- ISBN
- 9798293890088
- DDC
- 378
- 저자명
- Lu, Paolina.
- 서명/저자
- Cricket Capitalism: Taste, Labor, and the Future of Food
- 발행사항
- [Sl] : New York University, 2025
- 발행사항
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2025
- 형태사항
- 270 p
- 주기사항
- Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-03, Section: B.
- 주기사항
- Advisor: Tu, Thuy Linh Nguyen.
- 학위논문주기
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2025.
- 초록/해제
- 요약This dissertation, an interdisciplinary, multi-sited ethnography, investigates contemporary efforts to create insect-based food systems in the United States, alongside a longstanding insect-based immigrant foodway in urban central Iowa, the grasshopper foraging practices of a family with origins in the hills of Northern Vietnam. It is based on research conducted from 2018 to 2024, that includes analysis of American cultural productions related to edible insects, archival research related to the cultural history of obsession with protein, participant observation during which I worked at a cricket production site and foraged for grasshoppers in central Iowa, and thirty interviews conducted with people based in the United States and Canada who were involved in the insect agriculture industry in various capacities: educators, entrepreneurs, people who worked at insect agriculture companies, food scientists, engineers, researchers, investors, and policy makers.In the dissertation, I develop the concept of "cricket capitalism" to characterize the flurry of activity to produce and promote insects as food during the 2010s, and attempt to draw some lessons from its failure. Cricket capitalism describes how in the face of environmental, social, and economic crises, people turned to insects as an undervalued resource, a solution, and a means of securing human futures, approaching the formation of new, extractive relationships with insects as a hedge against loss, and as a capitalist frontier. In other words, cricket capitalism names the way that people put insects to work figuratively and literally, as they attempted to harness the power of insects towards their own ends, by drawing them into capitalist food systems. Unpacking this phenomenon and reflecting on its failure, I argue that crickets offer lessons in humility and the limits of human control, on the stubbornness of taste, and the false promise of the "quick fix" (be it techno- or otherwise) to complex and deep-seated problems. When looked at alongside cricket capitalism, one family's enduring practice of foraging for grasshoppers points towards human futures that don't depend on fantasies of total capture and control, and reminds us that some things simply can't and shouldn't be scaled up, but instead, are best kept small.Throughout my research, the topic of eating insects not only led to conversations about the material phenomena of "climate change," but appeared as an occasion for people to express anxiety about the future, and what they feared losing or had already lost: the pleasures and meaning of eating meat, humanity's capacity to feed itself, the identity of being a "farmer," the ability to live like their parents had or provide a good life for their children, and homes fled under the threat of violence. This affective throughline allowed me to see how across different contexts, people turned to insects to mitigate and soothe loss, both foreseen and experienced. It created a framework that held projections of future environmental devastation in relation to present ways of life slipping away, and to histories of political violence and destruction. This relational interspecies framework contributes to the growing body of scholarship about the affective dimensions of climate change, broadening our understanding of what "climate change" is by approaching it at the level of feeling and lived experience, and as something that has already happened for some people.
- 일반주제명
- American studies
- 일반주제명
- Agriculture
- 일반주제명
- Entomology
- 일반주제명
- Climate change
- 키워드
- Food systems
- 기타저자
- New York University Social and Cultural Analysis
- 기본자료저록
- Dissertations Abstracts International. 87-03B.
- 전자적 위치 및 접속
- 로그인 후 원문을 볼 수 있습니다.
MARC
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■00520260202104725
■006m o d
■007cr#unu||||||||
■020 ▼a9798293890088
■035 ▼a(MiAaPQ)AAI32122122
■040 ▼aMiAaPQ▼cMiAaPQ
■0820 ▼a378
■1001 ▼aLu, Paolina.
■24510▼aCricket Capitalism: Taste, Labor, and the Future of Food
■260 ▼a[Sl]▼bNew York University▼c2025
■260 1▼aAnn Arbor▼bProQuest Dissertations & Theses▼c2025
■300 ▼a270 p
■500 ▼aSource: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-03, Section: B.
■500 ▼aAdvisor: Tu, Thuy Linh Nguyen.
■5021 ▼aThesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2025.
■520 ▼aThis dissertation, an interdisciplinary, multi-sited ethnography, investigates contemporary efforts to create insect-based food systems in the United States, alongside a longstanding insect-based immigrant foodway in urban central Iowa, the grasshopper foraging practices of a family with origins in the hills of Northern Vietnam. It is based on research conducted from 2018 to 2024, that includes analysis of American cultural productions related to edible insects, archival research related to the cultural history of obsession with protein, participant observation during which I worked at a cricket production site and foraged for grasshoppers in central Iowa, and thirty interviews conducted with people based in the United States and Canada who were involved in the insect agriculture industry in various capacities: educators, entrepreneurs, people who worked at insect agriculture companies, food scientists, engineers, researchers, investors, and policy makers.In the dissertation, I develop the concept of "cricket capitalism" to characterize the flurry of activity to produce and promote insects as food during the 2010s, and attempt to draw some lessons from its failure. Cricket capitalism describes how in the face of environmental, social, and economic crises, people turned to insects as an undervalued resource, a solution, and a means of securing human futures, approaching the formation of new, extractive relationships with insects as a hedge against loss, and as a capitalist frontier. In other words, cricket capitalism names the way that people put insects to work figuratively and literally, as they attempted to harness the power of insects towards their own ends, by drawing them into capitalist food systems. Unpacking this phenomenon and reflecting on its failure, I argue that crickets offer lessons in humility and the limits of human control, on the stubbornness of taste, and the false promise of the "quick fix" (be it techno- or otherwise) to complex and deep-seated problems. When looked at alongside cricket capitalism, one family's enduring practice of foraging for grasshoppers points towards human futures that don't depend on fantasies of total capture and control, and reminds us that some things simply can't and shouldn't be scaled up, but instead, are best kept small.Throughout my research, the topic of eating insects not only led to conversations about the material phenomena of "climate change," but appeared as an occasion for people to express anxiety about the future, and what they feared losing or had already lost: the pleasures and meaning of eating meat, humanity's capacity to feed itself, the identity of being a "farmer," the ability to live like their parents had or provide a good life for their children, and homes fled under the threat of violence. This affective throughline allowed me to see how across different contexts, people turned to insects to mitigate and soothe loss, both foreseen and experienced. It created a framework that held projections of future environmental devastation in relation to present ways of life slipping away, and to histories of political violence and destruction. This relational interspecies framework contributes to the growing body of scholarship about the affective dimensions of climate change, broadening our understanding of what "climate change" is by approaching it at the level of feeling and lived experience, and as something that has already happened for some people.
■590 ▼aSchool code: 0146.
■650 4▼aAmerican studies
■650 4▼aAgriculture
■650 4▼aEntomology
■650 4▼aClimate change
■653 ▼aCricket capitalism
■653 ▼aFood systems
■653 ▼aInsect agriculture industry
■653 ▼aAmerican cultural productions
■690 ▼a0323
■690 ▼a0404
■690 ▼a0473
■690 ▼a0353
■71020▼aNew York University▼bSocial and Cultural Analysis.
■7730 ▼tDissertations Abstracts International▼g87-03B.
■790 ▼a0146
■791 ▼aPh.D.
■792 ▼a2025
■793 ▼aEnglish
■85640▼uhttp://www.riss.kr/pdu/ddodLink.do?id=T17358604▼nKERIS▼z이 자료의 원문은 한국교육학술정보원에서 제공합니다.


