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Paper short abstract

This paper examines technovisions in the cultured meat industry, analysing their coordinative and normative functions. Using secondary data analysis and statistical methods, it reconstructs inclusion/exclusion mechanisms shaping the social construction of future food production.

Paper long abstract

Lab-grown capitalism: Technovisions, Cultured Meat, and the Socio-Technological Construction of the Future

Key words: cultured meet, performing the future, technovisions

The contemporary capitalist economy is undergoing profound restructuring driven by the convergence of biotechnology, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence. Among the most significant manifestations of this process is the emergence of the alternative protein industry and, in particular, cultured meat (lab-grown meat) produced through the proliferation of animal cells in specialised bioreactors. This paper examines this development through the analytical lens of technovisions, understood as socially constructed and performative images of the future that serve coordinative, normative, and mobilising functions within processes of technological innovation. The study pursues three interrelated research objectives. First, it seeks to reconstruct the technovisions articulated by key actors in the cultured meat industry. Second, it identifies the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion embedded within these technovisions analysing what is foregrounded and what is systematically marginalised. Third, it assesses the social efficacy of the future-performative processes through which a coherent, publicly acceptable image of an inevitable food production future is constructed. The research draws on complementary methodological approaches. The first objectives are addressed through the analysis of secondary data, including industry websites, expert publications, and corporate communications in which technovisions are produced. The third objective is addressed through statistical analysis of indicators reflecting the representation of future social order and human-technology relations in these materials enabling evaluation of the effectiveness with which technovisions conceal hidden tensions, exclusions, and contested assumptions associated with the cellular food production.