Date: Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 October, 2022

Location: Deakin Downtown, Melbourne

Convenors: Angie Sassano, Carina Truyts, Dr. Chris Mayes, and Dr. Timothy Neale

Sponsored by the  CES (Culture, Environment and Society Stream) of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University.

Supported by the SSN and the IPCS (Institute for Postcolonial Studies). 

Metabolism is a generative and embodied process. It involves ingestion, production, and assimilation of nutritive matter (which can be considered lively, inert, socially shaped, historically constituted, affectively accompanied, symbolically mediated). Eating can be joyful, social, and sweet. At the interface of ‘environment’ and body, metabolism also produces – it excretes, breaks down, absorbs, and stinks. Metabolism imbricates bodies and environments, people and place. Attending to metabolism draws attention to the interfaces between biopolitical and social life; ecology and body; human and animal; nature and nurture. Metabolic Mattering invites HDRs and ECRs across disciplines who are thinking with and about the gut, its matter(s) and why it matters. 

The Metabolic Mattering workshop aims to grow a network of HDR and ECR scholars who broadly engage with metabolic matters. It offers a space for interdisciplinary engagement, mentoring, conceptual troubleshooting, and facilitated writing.

Day 1 of the workshop will include a keynote address by Dr. Sophie Chao (University of Sydney), followed by attendee presentations and a field trip. On Day 2 we will meet at the Institute of Postcolonial Studies. A panel of interdisciplinary scholars will participate in a roundtable discussion on methods, challenges, and ways of knowing in metabolic and food-related research. This will be followed by an opportunity for panelists to provide feedback on the work attendees presented on Day 1, discussion and writing. 

We invite proposals for papers from HDR and ECR scholars responding to the theme of Metabolic Mattering, which attend to and theorise metabolism in relation to biopolitical thinking. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Waste and discard studies,
• Plasticity,
• Postgenomics,
• More-than-human worlding,
• Food justice and sovereignty,
• Feminist and queer perspectives,
• Nourishment and care,
• Climate and environment,
• Ecologies,
• Urban and rural food systems,
• Methodologies

There are limited spaces available for the workshop. Applications close 30 August 2022.

To apply, you will need to submit a proposal for a 10-minute presentation at the workshop on a topic related to the theme of Metabolic Mattering.

Applications must include an abstract of 250-300 words, a short bio of 100-200 words, and 5 keywords.

Please email applications to asassano@deakin.edu.au and ctruyts@deakin.edu.au  with the subject line: Metabolic Mattering 2022 application.

Successful applicants will be notified by 1 October. 

For questions or enquiries please contact Angie Sassano at asassano@deakin.edu.au and Carina Truyts at ctruyts@deakin.edu.au

 

This workshop is funded by the CES (Culture, Environment and Society) Stream of the Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University. It is