Work

Metabolic ethnography

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Metabolism is witnessing a renewed interest in human geography and the social sciences. Although conceptual work has elaborated its chemical, political and economic dimensions, qualitative methods have not kept pace with the industrial reorganization of metabolism. This article advances a metabolic ethnography: a sustained inquiry into material transformation that traces social, spatial and economic processes from altered metabolic relations. Organized around three orientations – eating, substance and pathways – it argues that ethnography must be reoriented in response to regimes of exposure, incorporation and circulation that now condition life in an industrialized world - recasting what counts as method across the social sciences.

Source: Progress in Human Geography

DOI: 10.1177/03091325261430248

Author: Maan Barua

Institution: University of Cambridge

Language: English

Topic: Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

Subfield: Cultural Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,900

Funder: H2020 European Research Council