Cornell University.
J Peasant Stud. 2010;37(3):461-84. doi: 10.1080/03066150.2010.494371.
This paper critically assesses the metabolic rift as a social, ecological, and historical concept describing the disruption of natural cycles and processes and ruptures in material human-nature relations under capitalism. As a social concept, the metabolic rift presumes that metabolism is understood in relation to the labour process. This conception, however, privileges the organisation of labour to the exclusion of the practice of labour, which we argue challenges its utility for analysing contemporary socio-environmental crises. As an ecological concept, the metabolic rift is based on outmoded understandings of (agro) ecosystems and inadequately describes relations and interactions between labour and ecological processes. Historically, the metabolic rift is integral to debates about the definitions and relations of capitalism, industrialism, and modernity as historical concepts. At the same time, it gives rise to an epistemic rift, insofar as the separation of the natural and social worlds comes to be expressed in social thought and critical theory, which have one-sidedly focused on the social. We argue that a reunification of the social and the ecological, in historical practice and in historical thought, is the key to repairing the metabolic rift, both conceptually and practically. The food sovereignty movement in this respect is exemplary.
本文批判性地评估了代谢裂隙这一社会、生态和历史概念，将其描述为资本主义下自然循环和过程的破坏以及物质人类-自然关系的破裂。作为一个社会概念，代谢裂隙假设代谢是在与劳动过程的关系中被理解的。然而，这种观念将劳动组织置于劳动实践之上，我们认为这挑战了它在分析当代社会环境危机方面的实用性。作为一个生态概念，代谢裂隙基于对（农业）生态系统的过时理解，并且不能充分描述劳动和生态过程之间的关系和相互作用。从历史上看，代谢裂隙是关于资本主义、工业主义和现代性作为历史概念的定义和关系的辩论的一个组成部分。同时，它产生了一个认识论裂隙，因为自然世界和社会世界的分离开始在社会思想和批判理论中得到表达，而这些思想和理论片面地关注社会。我们认为，在历史实践和历史思想中，社会和生态的重新统一是修复代谢裂隙的关键，无论是在概念上还是在实践上。在这方面，粮食主权运动是一个典范。
