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Short abstract

I conduct a Timescapes (Adam 1998) analysis of the legalisation of cultured meat – a technology that seeks to grow meat from cells – to demonstrate how multiple invocations of temporality are used to assert a specific political framing of the technology.

Long abstract

Cultured meat is a technology that seeks to grow meat from cells. From early science fiction imaginaries of the 1880s, to the pronouncements of VC-backed start-ups across the globe today, it has always been positioned as part of a significant reconfiguration of our food and social systems. In this paper I adopt a Timescapes approach (Adam 1998) to analyse the politics of cultured meat’s recent legalisation, first in Singapore, as other countries follow. I analyse how multiple invocations of temporality – far futures, poignant pasts, and prescient presents, - are intersected with practices that mark moments and assert transitions. The paper draws upon fifteen years of research on the cultural politics of cultured meat, based upon a sociological and STS approach using interviews and observations with cultured meat professionals. I focus on how asserted meanings are performed through the construction of specific timelines, by whom, and how, and how this attributes significance to, specifically in this case, 7.03, SST.