ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that representations of coerced cannibalism in speculative fiction give readers an important insight about the psychological and (un)ethical underpinnings of food systems and industrial agriculture, as well as global capital more generally and its relation to environmental crisis. It uses MEAT and Animals as a lens to explore narratives of cannibalism in two ways: firstly, as a method of examining current meat foodways, and secondly, as an embodiment of capitalocentric attitudes in which capitalist practices act as a form of planetary cannibalism. The food system is particularly relevant here, as early modern roots of capitalism can be found in the development of commodity frontiers. These frontiers are worked to exhaustion due to market pressure, necessitating ever new frontiers, a practice that is unsustainable in a world of finite landmass and arable land.
