Eating, being and the ecological crisis of forests: Southeast Asia on the front lines. Issue 131 (May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Báez, Jacinto
• Is Part Of: Geoforum. Issue 131(2022)
• Page Start: 89
• Page End: 92
• Publication Date: 2022-05
• Subjects: Eating -- Being -- Ecological awareness -- Human-nature dualism -- Southeast Asia; Geography -- Periodicals; Human geography -- Periodicals; Regional planning -- Periodicals; Sciences de la terre -- Périodiques; Géographie -- Périodiques; Géographie humaine -- Périodiques; Aménagement du territoire -- Périodiques; Earth sciences; Geography; Human geography; Regional planning; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.03.010
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0016-7185

Abstract

Highlights: Eating makes us individuals that exist as long the world is inside us. Humans have no true boundaries, everything that we consume is potentially a human. The ecological crisis results from the human aversion to the plurality of forests. Southeast Asia, rich in resources, is at the front line of biodiversity loss. Specific scientific knowledge is produced to maintain a human-nature dualism. Abstract: The ecological crisis has prompted complex discussions about the place and morals of humans in nature. Popular conceptions of environmental awareness still largely rely on the human-nature division, a concept that has historically and symbolically justified the role of humans as managers of their surroundings. This concept is now evolving to attack its creator, since the ecological crisis prompts a certain "positive" discrimination towards humans in favor of the other, the natural, which keeps the dualistic vision in place with a primitivist flavor. Using Annemarie Mol's "Eating in Theory" we discuss how, through eating, the human body has no boundaries but is continuously crossed, transformed and maintained by the beings that surround them. With Southeast Asia as a focus and critical point in the current crisis, we create a connection between the fear humans have of being vulnerable to nature and the power at the same time they have to dominate it, devour it and artificially separate from it. With this, it is hoped to prompt new debates on how environmental awareness can start in the human body when, through the logic of eating, nothing is surrounding.