Unwrapping the OXO Cube: Josué de Castro and the Intellectual History of Metabolism

The material and intellectual history of geographical concepts matters. So, too, does providing alternative intellectual histories that can help to untangle imperialist threads and open new paths for geographical thought. Anglophone political ecology has relied greatly on the concept of metabolism, drawn from Marx and the German chemist Justus von Liebig. Upon this conception of the relationship between society and nature major edifices of social theory have been erected. Here I both trace the concept’s history to the material flows of imperialism and offer an alternative intellectual history for metabolic critique through the work of Josué de Castro (1908–1973), a Brazilian geographer and nutritionist. I argue that a physiological, anticolonial version of metabolic critique draws attention to how the bodies and flows of (not only) Europe and Europeans and (not only) Latin America and Latin Americans are produced in relation to one another. Emerging work has sought to put forward anticolonial and embodied political ecology: Thinking with Castro can help take these approaches in fruitful directions. Key Words: history of geography, hunger, Josué de Castro, metabolism, political ecology.