Slater, Eamonn and Flaherty, Eoin (2023) Marx on the Reciprocal Interconnections between the Soil and the Human Body: Ireland and Its Colonialised Metabolic Rifts. Antipode, 55 (2). pp. 620-642. ISSN 0066-4812

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Abstract

Marx’s writings on Ireland are widely known, but less appreciated is theircentrality to the formation of his ecological thought. We show how Marx’s understand-ing of metabolic rift evolved in line with his writings on colonial Ireland, revealing a con-cept more holistic than the“classic”metabolic rift of the soil. We recover and extendthis concept to thecorporealmetabolic rift, showing how both are inherent in Marx’svarious writings on Ireland. Whilst the rift of the soil concerns the extraction and con-sumption of organic soil constituents, the corporeal rift describes processes of depopula-tion, and their effects on demography and family formation. These“rifted”processesare interconnected such that depleted soil impacts on the health of those who consumefood grown on those“rifted”soils. We argue that the presence of these rifts substanti-ates Ireland’s inability to sustain itself both economically and organically, which deter-mined its persistent post-Famine underdevelopment.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Marx; metabolic rift; corporeal metabolic rift; colonialism; Ireland; doubleform; underdevelopment;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology
Item ID:	17057
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12886
Depositing User:	Eoin Flaherty
Date Deposited:	23 Mar 2023 11:17
Journal or Publication Title:	Antipode
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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