OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Despite overwhelming proof of the ethically, ecologically, and politically problematic nature of industrial animal agriculture – and despite the ongoing efforts of animal rights activists, environmental NGOs, scholars, and scientists to critique this industry – the global public’s appetite for meat continues to grow. In the United States alone, 10 billion animals will be killed for food this year and the average American will eat approximately 220 pounds of meat. In this context, the most promising weapon against factory farming has emerged from the private sector. Plant-based meat and milk alternatives have made massive strides in the market, and not-yet-released cellular agriculture products promise to replace conventional meat with a biologically identical analogue. This talk, taking a cynical-pragmatist view of social change, suggests that capitalism offers unique opportunities for ethically and ecologically desirable disruptive action: a “progressive Schumpeterianism” whereby large-scale change in public behaviour can be achieved through the development of alternative forms of production. Rather than simply an endorsement of techno-utopian futurism or green capitalism, this talk offers the argument that intervening in modes of production and consumption must be seen as inherently political. In doing so, it also traces the synergies and schisms between traditional animal rights activism and market-based solutions, pointing out how new food technologies both rely on and capitalize on the work of social movements. This talk concludes with suggestions for how new food technology might be pulled toward achieving food justice and “food tech justice” in the coming age of food animal obsolescence.