10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17241
In this paper I explore the relationship between insects, technoscience and sustainability culture made possible by recent developments in fabrication, micro-robotics, and design. I define the resulting scenario as “Insect Industry”. This emerging agglomerate of practices and technological developments is comprised of practices and applications that promote, exploit and manipulate insects for their sustainable potentials. Among these practices is the flourishing of visionary micro-farming enclosures and experimental food-design, contributing to the urge to produce sustainable sources of food; the re-making of insects in micro-robotics; and the design of GM insects to help fight devastating diseases such as Dengue Fever. Although engaging with distinct fields of research and forms of creative entrepreneurship, these endeavors use very similar strategies and discursive patterns to promote innovation and sustainability, and the promise to fix the world. In illustrating a variety of examples in microrobotics, fabrication, and bioengineering, I ask: is this recent trend really marking the beginning of a new phase in sustainable innovation based on Humans/animals balanced coexistence or it rather constitutes another (maybe more acceptable or more palatable) form of exploitation of the non-human? Is this newly emerging “insect industry” obeying or rather contradicting the imperatives of economic growth and the principles of technological innovation supported by Western Culture?
application/pdf
2038-3460
17241
1
en
Roberta Buiani
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
solutionism
The Rise of the Insect Industry. Sustainable Potential or Wasteful Accumulation
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
6
Scenarios
2015-07-10
2023-06-17
2015-07-10
2023-07-31
109-131
TS
Roberta Buiani
2015/07/10
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17241
109
University of York & The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, Toronto
2038-3460
1
solutionism
en
131
The Rise of the Insect Industry. Sustainable Potential or Wasteful Accumulation
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17241/16106
6
                                                                            Scenario

The Rise of the Insect Industry
Sustainable Potential or Wasteful Accumulation
Roberta Buiani
University of York &
The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, Toronto
!

     Abstract In this paper I explore the relationship between insects, techno-
     science and sustainability culture made possible by recent developments in
     fabrication, micro-robotics, and design. I define the resulting scenario as
     “Insect Industry”. This emerging agglomerate of practices and technological
     developments is comprised of practices and applications that promote, ex-
     ploit and manipulate insects for their sustainable potentials. Among these
     practices is the flourishing of visionary micro-farming enclosures and exper-
     imental food-design, contributing to the urge to produce sustainable
     sources of food; the re-making of insects in micro-robotics; and the design
     of GM insects to help fight devastating diseases such as Dengue Fever. Alt-
     hough engaging with distinct fields of research and forms of creative entre-
     preneurship, these endeavors use very similar strategies and discursive pat-
     terns to promote innovation and sustainability, and the promise to fix the
     world. In illustrating a variety of examples in microrobotics, fabrication, and
     bioengineering, I ask: is this recent trend really marking the beginning of a
     new phase in sustainable innovation based on Humans/animals balanced co-
     existence or it rather constitutes another (maybe more acceptable or
     more palatable) form of exploitation of the non-human? Is this newly
     emerging “insect industry” obeying or rather contradicting the imperatives
     of economic growth and the principles of technological innovation support-
     ed by Western Culture?

     Keywords: sustainable innovation; interspecies relation; anthropo-
     centrism; biomimicry; solutionism.

     Corresponding author: Roberta Buiani, The Fields Institute for Research
     in Mathematical Sciences, 222 College Street – Toronto, Ontario, M5T 3J1
     – Canada – Email: robb@yorku.ca.


1. Introduction
    In “Meeting the Universe Halfway”, Karen Barad describes the brit-
tlestar’s remarkable nature as a “living, breathing, metamorphosing opti-
cal system” (Barad 2007, 370). The brittlestar has no brain, but behaves
as if it had one; it has no eyes, yet its entire body is a constellation of tiny
!
TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
6 (1) pp. 109-131 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                              2015
110                                                           Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

eyes. This discovery has potentials to shake our traditional Cartesian con-
straints that prevent us from associating mind and performed entangle-
ment of physical matter, and that force us to distinguish between inten-
tionality and casual, unconscious agency. However, scientists preferred to
interpret this phenomenon as “unusual” (Abraham 2001), and proceeded
to describe this configuration using technological analogies and meta-
phors, a register that could reproduce the significance of this surprising
discovery in a way that is easy-to-grasp and that could be unambiguously
disseminated.
    This example reveals the – inadvertent or voluntary – inability to think
beyond preconceived ideas of the individual as self-contained (as op-
posed to the networked being manifested by the brittlestar’s appearance
and behavior), as unique (contrary to the brittlestar's multiplicity) and as
sentient (contradicted by the brittlestar’s apparent decision-making abili-
ties even without the existence of a brain). How could it be otherwise
possible to think of being (eyes) and doing (seeing) as one thing?
    According to Barad, the excitement that followed the reporting of this
story “has more to do with its potential applications than pure amaze-
ment at the ingenuity of this creature’s bodily know-how” (Barad 2007,
373), as the brittlestar is compared to a digital camera that builds its vi-
sion pixel-by-pixel. Thus, it is not through a rethinking of the humanist
episteme that scientists and observers have attempted to make sense of
this bizarre creature, but through technological associations. On the one
hand these technological analogies simplify and reify the complexity of
the brittlestar and align it to traditional interpretations of the natural. On
the other hand, they reveal an instrumental and anthropocentric ap-
proach that seems to be more devoted to the use of biomimetics to solve
human questions (e.g., the construction of better optic devices and mate-
rial design) than to the understanding of the new.
    In other words, this line of thinking refuses to abandon the idea of
human exceptionalism (Wolfe 2013), the position that human beings are
the most important species in the planet, and the refusal to admit that the
identity of the human species “is not unified or self-present, but thor-
oughly implicated in the phenomenology and ontology of other nonhu-
man species” (Chiew 2014, 54).
    The insect industry is clearly a product of the resistance and the inca-
pacity to think beyond human exceptionality. However, it does so indi-
rectly, through the refusal to question (or the opportunist complacency
with) the economic and technological systems upon which this human
exceptionalism is based.
    In the next pages, I zoom in on the specific nexus of sustainability cul-
ture and emerging technologies in the cooptation of insects. In particular,
I propose examples based on a variety of technological innovations,
whose analogous use of rhetoric and discursive approaches suggests that
they be analyzed as part of the same trend. I define this trend “the insect
industry”.
Buiani                                                                   111
    Despite their different uses of technologies, these examples actively
participate in the mechanisms of capitalist values of production and con-
sumption, showing how the cooptation of insects in their endeavors hin-
ders, rather than propose, any meaningful transformation to the current
industrial/technological principles of growth. The very attachment of the
insect industry to these principles – and its consequent reliance on tech-
nologies for its survival – proves to be a popular, yet momentous trend
that might do nothing to solve the problems it has claimed to tackle. As
ultimate result, despite its alleged forward-thinking, the insect industry is
stuck with the good-old model of human exceptionalism.


2. Technology and the Living

     The analogy between technology and the living brought us “a particu-
lar production of nature”, as a condition of the “Postmodern World”,
whereby “Technological decontextualization is ordinary experience for
hundreds of millions if not billions of human beings, as well as other or-
ganisms” (Haraway 1992, 297). In her Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway iden-
tifies this particular production in terms of “implosion of biologics and
informatics”, that is, as a way “of conceiving of us as communication sys-
tems, whether we are animate or inanimate, whether we are humans or
animals... or machines of any kind” (Haraway 1989, 322). In a way, the
description of the qualities of the brittlestar noted by Barad demonstrates
this line of thinking, as scientists not only immediately compared the crea-
ture’s eye-ness to tiny web cameras, but also appeared to be unable to tell
the two items apart.
     The non-human, the animal have been sources of inspiration and the
subjects of imitation stemming from the acknowledgment of their abilities
to run faster, to blend in and hide, to accomplish certain tasks in ways
that humans deemed more “efficient”. At the same time, they have been
the subjects of (unintended or unrealized) exploitation. In fact, human
aspiration to run faster, to fly, to see without being seen, to be more effi-
cient have come with the assumption that these abilities could be one day
turned to the service of mankind. Thus, non-human entities and animals
were caught in a non-reciprocal relationship that located them, no matter
what, on a lower scale.
     Analogies and comparisons between mechanical objects and organ-
isms, natural phenomena and engineering constructions have circulated
at least since the XVI century, becoming widespread in the XVII century
with the Scientific Revolution. As human faculties (e.g. the nervous sys-
tem or human organs) were compared to the gears of clocks or the parts
of mechanical instruments, so these very instruments drew inspiration
from natural organisms and phenomena. For example, Leonardo da Vinci
famously observed the flight of birds and examined the nature of air in
order to build his flying machines, which culminated in the study Codice
112                                                         Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

sul Volo degli Uccelli (Codex on the Flight of Birds, 1505-06). Peter Gali-
son reports how for Descartes, Galileo and Bacon, machines-objects
analogies had important expository and explanatory roles, providing sim-
ple and compelling examples for dissemination among a wider public
(Galison 1984). For instance, Descartes described the human nervous sys-
tem as an engineering apparatus consisting of “water pipes” upon observ-
ing the mechanisms that animated the statues and the skilfully engineered
fountains located in the royal gardens of Saint-Germain.
    The recent rise of animal rights and countless studies in environmen-
tal science have suggested that the human and the non-human stand in a
symbiotic relationship rather than in a subordinate one. The ontological
turn in anthropology started to shift focus from “how humans and their
worlds are portrayed” to “how they are thought to be”(Kirksey et al.
2014, 3), partially transforming the way in which we speak about, we re-
late to, and we use animals and natural resources. Ethnographers for in-
stance no longer only explore human actors, but also interspecies rela-
tions, or how “the human has been formed and transformed amid en-
counters with multiple species of plants, animals, fungi, microbes”
(Kirksey et al. 2014, 5).
    Historically, insects have inspired the arts and the industrial sector,
they have functioned as blueprints of behavioral, technological, and social
models (as in the areas of biomimetics and biomimicry), and have been
used as metaphors of class and social power, self, and the other (Siganos
1985; Hollingsworth 2005; Magnet 2013).
    However, my interest lies in a more specific set of relationalities (or
“intensities”, to reference Parikka 2010) emerging from their material in-
tersections with technoscience and its inherent discourses. Specifically, I
wish to complicate the emphasis that recent texts in Media Studies and
Animal Studies have placed on the mutual exchanges (unconscious and
instrumental) occurring during human-animal encounters and between
animals and technoscience (Haraway 2008; Parikka 2010; Wolfe 2013).
    For instance, Donna Haraway conceptualizes the threads interfacing
humans with animals (and insects) as a “becoming with,” that is, as a
“tapestry of shared being/becoming among critters (including humans)”
(Haraway 2009, 118). This tapestry includes “unequal and ontologically
multiple instrumental relationships”, where different “responders are
themselves co-constituted” (Haraway 2009, 116).
    Cary Wolfe uses this notion to rethink the Posthuman as not being
about the way in which “the human is transformed and eclipsed by vari-
ous technological, informatics, and engineering developments rooted in
the early Twentieth Century”(Wolfe, in Serres 2007), but about the pro-
cesses unfolding through these uneven relations. This relational move,
Parikka notes (2010), manifests at the material level as the capacities of
human and animal bodies can no longer be detached from considerations
of their technological framings. Thus, at least in some contexts, we can
see a turn towards considering the non-human insect worth of our partial
Buiani                                                                  113
respect, yet not before being properly anthropomorphised or made more
human.
     Although for these authors issues of conservation and sustainability in
industrial societies are certainly important in modulating the intersections
between the human, insects (or animal), and technologies, they only con-
stitute two of the many aspects converging into such intersections. For
Parikka, today’s intensification of technoscientific research and innova-
tions centered on insects is the product of a complex entanglement of
technology “with a variety of animal bodies and nature” whereby insects
have made the “cyborg as imagined since the 1980s in theory and fiction
seem quite old-fashioned” (Parikka 2013, 108). However, he admits brief-
ly, in this scenario the human is far from being taken off the picture.
     The most recent wave of projects focusing on the intersection of in-
sects and technologies tends to prioritize a new type of instrumental an-
thropocentrism that aggressively pursues insects through manipulation
and re-fabrication in the name of a discourse – sustainability – presented
as the pursue of the harmonious coexistence between, and balance of,
humans and non-humans, yet still profoundly focused on the human. In
fact, in many cases, insects are neither mere conceptual inspirations and
technical models, nor organisms explicitly at the service of human goals
(like in bee keeping or silkworm husbandry), but entities that have be-
come physically built into these very technologies. In other words, insects
become not only the subjects legitimating technologies, but also the enti-
ties that technologies will substitute, modify or keep alive in order to
guarantee humans’ economical wealth and everyday survival. This inter-
pretation frames insects as both in symbiosis with, as well as subjected to
technologies, an ambiguous relation reminiscent of the relation between
sustainability culture and the capitalist system of values hosting it.


3. Exceptionalism and the Sustainable Paradigm

    I ascribe the recent technological and entrepreneurial undertakings
forming the insect industry to the dual conception of sustainability cul-
ture, which is often described as a “contradictory nexus of relations be-
tween production, ideology, state and society” (Parr 2009; see also
Goodbun 2010). In fact, today’s technological paradigms and the eco-
nomic obligations of late capitalism play a substantial role in shaping (and
clashing with) the sustainable content that these new practices claim to
support. For instance, their commitment to ethics of conservation and
waste reduction are challenged by practices supporting consumerism and
accumulation (Harvey 2005; Sullivan 2013). Although the rhetoric and
enthusiasm of these practices praise the potential environmental benefits
of new technologies and industrial applications, these benefits are always
tied to principles of ceaseless growth and obsolescence (Slade 2007; Bur-
nett et al. 2009).
114                                                           Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

    While applications merging insects and technology seem to
acknowledge the coexistence and mutual dependence of insects (as ani-
mal/other), technologies, and the human, their mandate and goals are
skewed towards the sole improvement of the human species. In other
words, although the rhetoric that propels the insect industry seems to
agree with recent Posthuman concerns regarding the role and the value of
the non-human other for human existence, prompting a call to act quickly
in order to preserve the world as we know it, its doing tells another story.
In fact, these post-human concerns are generally contradicted by the pri-
oritization of human needs at the expenses of ecological balance. Fur-
thermore, the ambiguous interpretation of the word “sustainable” and
“sustainability” appears to legitimize unchecked growth and surplus pro-
duction, as well as maximization of financial gains.
    In the first case, the idea of preservation and the call to responsibility
that often characterize the industries and research facilities involved in in-
sect fabrication, breeding and modification, is principally opportunist,
preoccupied, to various degrees, and expressed in more or less blunt
words, to reach the good of human species, rather than to attain a balance
for the entire ecosystems. For instance, the fabrication of robotic insects
as substitutes for the biological ones is primarily conceived as a solution
to the possible disappearance of crops and goods vital to human healthy
living. Normally, these endeavours make no provisions regarding the
overall impact that the substitution of a biological insect for a robotic one
will have on the entire ecosystem. Similarly, entomophagy advocates a
transformation in the individuals’ food habits to adopt the consumption
of insects as a low impact alternative to resource-draining meat products.
However, this transformation is sold to the individual through well-
designed food and designer’s insect farm enclosures promising keen con-
sumers to breed their own insects in a “sanitized”, “leakage-free” and
“contact-free” environment. These invitations come with no warning
about the danger of overproduction and no advise about how to dispose
of insect waste, thus perpetuating the idea that not only insects are crea-
tures that bear no function other than being at human’s service, but that
become acceptable and acquire value only when incorporated into design
or technologies.
    In the second case, the buzz world “sustainability” – uttered at any
occasion in press releases and in advertising of insect-related technologies
– is a debated term subject to very different interpretations. Sustainability
pertains to the condition and the assessment of what is or can – potential-
ly or realistically – be obtained through the modulation of the interrela-
tions between human beings, nature and technological objects (McManus
1996; Robbins 2004).
    While being widely discussed in the context of environmental politics,
the notion of sustainability extends to the areas of economics, finance,
and labor studies, often fitting existing or ideal belief systems. The multi-
plicity of applications of this term has turned it into a contested notion: in
Buiani                                                                    115
fact, the meaning of what is “sustainable” is modulated differently ac-
cording to competing discourses that prioritize either the environmental
development of sustainability or sustainable development (McManus
1996, 49). The term “sustainability” seems to be arbitrarily attached, on
the one hand, to words such as ecology or conservation; on the other
hand, it is associated to growth or innovation.
    It is by using development and growth as synonyms, McManus ob-
serves, that the notion often bypasses the wasting habits of ceaseless pro-
duction and accumulation in the name of a “controlled use of material re-
sources and better distributed costs and benefits in a more equitable
manner than had previously occurred” (McManus 1996, 53). In turn, its
use is justified in the context of a particular apolitical notion of ecology
that claims, according to Robbins, that “ecological problems and crises
throughout the world are the result of inadequate adoption and imple-
mentation of “modern” economic techniques of management, exploita-
tion, and conservation” (Robbins 2004, 9). This way of thinking is driven
by the belief that “economic growth (sometimes termed 'development')
can occur alongside environmental conservation” (Robbins 2004, 10).
    The ambiguous interpretation of the notion of sustainability makes
the establishment of universal criteria for its understanding and applica-
tion impossible: the term is then used to estimate and condemn various
degrees of imbalance-causing activities such as the unregulated consump-
tion and depletion of natural local resources or the overproduction of
waste from particular activities (Sullivan 2013). Conversely, sustainability
is used to estimate and praise the economic or labour benefits deriving
from these very same activities. The resulting rationalization of human
and non-human natures comes to “conform to an economic system that
privileges price over other values, and profit-oriented market exchanges
over the distributive and sustainable logics of other economic systems”
(Sullivan 2013, 200).
    This interpretation brings to a third aspect that qualifies the insect in-
dustry as a product of human exceptionalism rather than an attempt to
re-think its main tenets: the development of insect-related products and
design seems to be tied to ambivalent motivations. Behind its noble
commitment to sustainability, it appears to use insects as a way to draw
attention to, and magnify the reactions of awe and enthusiasm regarding
the latest emerging technologies and scientific innovations, thus effective-
ly mitigating or even silencing any concern or unwelcome criticism these
technologies raise.
    Quoting white papers and scientific data of reputable world organiza-
tions advocating the human consumption of insects (van Huis et al.
2013); condemning the imminent extinction of bees (Greenpeace 2015),
or showing statistics about the mortality rates due to mosquito-born dis-
eases (Brady et al. 2012), the insect industry has found an audience will-
ing to listen. Enticed by their drive towards innovation and their sleek
and ingenious design, these audiences are easily lured to buy into a classic
116                                                         Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

technological trap: the fact that technologies will fix the world. What the
audiences are willing to forgive is the fact that these new products may be
new, but do perpetuate the same economic imperatives that stand at the
basis of Western Late Capitalist systems, namely, the idea that “Capital-
ism grows through investment and innovation in commodity production
accompanied by necessary expansions of populations of producer-
consumers” (Sullivan 2013).
    A number of scholars have associated this type of rhetoric to the ra-
ther essentialist notions of “greenwashing” or “ecobranding”, that is, how
large multi-national corporations have assumed the appearance of a
“green” ethos to further their corporate aims (Parr 2009). These terms
are used to denounce false claims of sustainability promoted by corpora-
tions, multinationals and governments. However, I would like to propose
a more nuanced interpretation. It appears that the insect industry is often
driven by a genuine desire to improve dramatic situations. Where it fal-
ters, however, is in its belief in what Evgeny Morozov (2013) calls “solu-
tionism”, that is, to think that it is only by inventing increasingly ad-
vanced techniques and technologies that we might be able to solve the
impending problems threatening our bees, our environment and our
health. According to Morozov, solutionism is “An unhealthy preoccupa-
tion with sexy, monumental and narrow-minded solutions![...]!to prob-
lems that are extremely complex, fluid and contentious![...].!Solutionism
presumes rather than investigates the problem it is trying to solve, reach-
ing for the answer before the questions have been fully asked” (Morozov
2014).
    Thus, I want to desist from using the above terms as they often convey
a degree of intentionality that not only does not describe accurately the
nature of the insect industry, but also dismisses the nuanced relations be-
tween insects, technologies and sustainability culture.


4. Sustainable Ideas, Consumerist Desires: Entomophagy
and Visionary Design

    On April 2013, The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued
a report documenting the detrimental consequences of the decrease of
forest resources and the disappearance of farmland due to excessive cattle
breeding. “Land is scarce and expanding the area devoted to farming is
rarely a viable or sustainable option. Oceans are overfished and climate
change and related water shortages could have profound implications for
food production”(van Huis et al. 2013), the report announces. “To meet
the food and nutrition challenges of today and tomorrow,” it continues,
“what we eat and how we produce it needs to be re-evaluated. Inefficien-
cies need to be rectified and food waste reduced. We need to find new
ways of growing food” (van Huis et al. 2013, 14). A viable solution, ac-
Buiani                                                                   117
cording to the author, is to embrace entomophagy (the consumption of
insects) as a sustainable alternative to meat (van Huis 2013).
    Although it has been a common practice in a number of countries in
Africa, Asia, and the Americas, entomophagy was never assimilated by
Western culture. On the contrary, it was rejected as a primitive and un-
palatable culinary option: as insects “seem doubly other – other than hu-
mans and other than the animals that we eat as well” (Loo and Sellbach
2013, 13), they are also associated with colonial assumptions of primitiv-
ism and “un-civilized” behavior (Mullin 1999).
    Early efforts sought to encourage the consumption of insects by pro-
moting their nutritional properties such as their protein-rich content. As
early as in the Nineteenth Century, Vincent Holt encouraged the con-
sumption of insects by classifying them on a scale of palatability that dis-
tinguished between vegetarian insects (edible) and non-vegetarian insects
(non-edible)(Holt 1992). However, these arguments didn’t seem to be
convincing enough, as general culturally-induced disgust and fears of lit-
erally becoming “what we eat” or, as Loo and Sellbach suggest, to be-
come “what we eat eats” (Loo and Sellbach 2013, 15), continued to pre-
vent the adoption of entomophagy.
    Interestingly, the FAO report appeared to trigger a partial inversion of
this trend, by shifting the issue from being just a choice dictated by taste
and culture, to being a responsible decision in the name of sustainability;
and by using scientific and technological innovation as means that would
enable this transformation to happen. In fact, since its very beginning, the
FAO report insists: “Insects offer a significant opportunity to merge tra-
ditional knowledge and modern science in both developed and develop-
ing countries” (van Huis et al. 2013, 25).
    By mentioning the role of science as a key protagonist in the quest for
a sustainable future, the report solicited a number of creative responses
from sectors such as the culinary sciences, food design and packaging, in-
dustrial design and the DIY community. Generally, innovative design was
identified as the key to achieve sustainability, as it could be used to suc-
cessfully make insect consumption suitable to the Western palate. This
strategy emerged in two distinct yet correlated sectors: food design and
industrial design.
    Food design start-up ENTO Box Ltd. (UK) aspires to introduce in-
sects into the Western diet gradually, by presenting them in the form of
aesthetically pleasant treats that de facto conceal the familiar shape of the
insect while drawing attention on the clever and attractive design of its
composition and package (ENTO Official website, n.d.). The company,
whose name originates from an abbreviation of the word entomophagy
and the popular Japanese lunch box going by the name of “bento”, pro-
duces bite size, perfectly shaped and tastefully colourful pieces delicately
arranged in an Asian-style tray. On their promotional webpage, ENTO
claims to “overcome people’s preconceptions and create a world where
edible insect foods are an enjoyable, everyday reality”. They continue:
118                                                          Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

“We do this because we love great food, designing exciting new experi-
ences, and well, the world we live in” (ENTO Official website, n.d.).
    By selling their products as innovative and exciting, and by cleverly
concealing their main ingredient, not only is ENTO Ltd. bypassing the
sense of disgust that often deters the potential customers from trying en-
tomophagy, but is also tickling their curiosity, effectively turning the food
into a novelty. ENTO’s promotional videos cite data provided by the
FAO report as well as studies highlighting the detrimental impact of cat-
tle breeding on the environment and on farmland. By doing so, the com-
pany effectively markets its products to a crowd eager to contribute to
making the world more sustainable, without however missing out on taste
and without participating in any activity that would imply sacrifices or
engaged action. Thus, the project of sustainability becomes secondary to
food experience and enjoyment, as the customer is motivated by the con-
sumerist desire to try a new product, rather than by awareness and by a
wish to make a real contribution to the environment and to sustainability.
    Following similar conceptual and promotional patterns, a number of
DIY and high-end industrial design projects rose to popularity right after
the FAO report was released. Among them, Katharina Unger’s “Farm
432” (Unger, n.d.), Jakub Dzamba’s crickets “Circle Chirp” bioreactor
(Dzamba 2015a), and Mansour Ourasanah’s “Lepsis” (Ourasanah 2012;
Boyer 2015) employ ingenious industrial design to introduce entomopha-
gy into the common household. Manifesting ethos and rhetoric compara-
ble to the rising digital fabrication industry (Moilanen and Vadén 2013),
these endeavors vow the dissemination of products that enable raising in-
sects at home for personal consumption, that is, independently from the
industrial intermediaries existing on the market.
    The three designers propose that each household acquires an insect
bioreactor, a vessel consisting of compartments which can be detached
and separated, in order to ensure the development of each stage of the
lifecycle of different insects (soldier flies, crickets, grasshoppers) from
egg, to larvae, to pupae, to full grown adulthood. This method also facili-
tates the collection of the adult insect for human consumption while leav-
ing behind its eggs, which will then hatch and continue a potentially nev-
er ending reproduction process. In all cases, each vessel is designed to as-
sure a safe and sanitary environment for both insects and humans, requir-
ing minimal management and space. According to these designers, the in-
sect bioreactor is like an innovative kitchen appliance (like a yogurt incu-
bator or a bread maker): having such vessel readily available at home
would guarantee the owner autonomy, as he/she would be able to enjoy a
continuous source of protein-rich food, while effortlessly contributing to
sustainable culture.
    Katarina Unger for instance suggests that owning an insect bioreactor
(Figure 1) serves two functions: it “creates not only a more sustainable fu-
ture of food production, but suggests new lifestyles and food cultures”,
enabling “people to turn against the dysfunctional system of current meat
Buiani                                                                      119
production by growing their own protein source at home” (Unger, n.d.).
Her idea for a black soldier fly bioreactor, she explains, originated from
concerns regarding the overpopulation of our planet. Using FAO and
similar reports, Unger points out that at this pace, by 2050, production of
meat will have to increase by 50%, a goal that can’t be reached as we will
soon run out of crop fields dedicated to feeding meat-producing animals
(van Huis et al. 2013).




    Fig. 1 – Katharina Unger, FARM 432 Insect Breeding, bioreactor prototype.


    Motivated by analogous concerns, architect Jakub Dzamba created a
cricket domestic bioreactor (Figure 2) as part of a project for the future of
farming in the third millennium, which he imagines will take place at
home, thanks to easy-to-install cricket reactors made of re-cycled materi-
al. Cricket reactors, Dzamba claims, “are domestic modules, meant for
household and office space, designed to house a population of 10,000
crickets, utilize local household biowaste, such as kitchen compost and
yard waste as feed, and produce a regular supply of food-grade crick-
ets”(Dzamba 2015a). As in the tradition of DIY makers and fabricators,
he sells relatively cheap kits that the user can assemble at home. In this
way, he hopes to fulfil his vision of “Third Millennium Farming”.
120                                                                Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)




      Fig. 2 – Jakub Dzamba, Household Cricket Reactor, video still from
      http://thirdmillenniumfarming.com/-


    Finally, Mansour Ourasanah proposes an elegantly designed grass-
hopper bioreactor (Figure 3) that can be adopted to avoid the environ-
mental destruction and the potential scarcity of food that will likely occur
in a few decades, should world consumption of meat and food waste in-
crease at the current pace. For the US-based, Togo born designer, adopt-
ing entomophagy is neither a matter of taste, nor simply a choice, but an
act of responsibility toward the environment and the product of an in-
creasing awareness about what we eat, especially in the West.
    It is easy to praise the commitment to ethics of conservation and waste
reduction of the above three examples, as they emphasize the contribu-
tion that single users could make in creating a sustainable, zero-footprint
and autonomous cycle of continuous production and consumption. Their
focus on modifying our food consumption’s habits by drawing attention
to taste, positive futuristic scenarios, and visionary and clever design is,
indeed, a persuasive strategy that works, especially in a society, like ours,
unwilling to renounce comfort and privilege to embrace a more balanced,
yet less satisfying lifestyle. After all, the bleak future predicted by the
FAO report is a hypothesis that a limited number of people is willing, or
prepared, to believe and to accept.
    However, by adopting said strategies, these designers fail to address
directly the transformative changes they seem to be hoping to obtain in
their advertisements and promotional messages. In fact, their messages
are mostly product-oriented, focusing on the contribution of the single
individual, rather than the community; they exalt the design of the food
over the food itself; and prioritize the ownership of the object-bioreactor
Buiani                                                                           121
over the potential value of the insects – the latter being left in the back-
ground, only portrayed as the content of the bioreactor, rather than the
main subject of interest. In other words, their messages appeals to the po-
tential user as consumer, rather than as a person with responsibility, lur-
ing her/him with a product that can be purchased or built, rather than
trying to foster her/his motivation and commitment.




    Fig. 3 – Mansour Ourasanah, Lepsis, Insect Breeder, from http://inhabitat-
    .com/mansour-ourasanah-designs-a-vessel-for-farming-edible-insects-at-
    home/lepsis-1/?extend=1.


     Second, insects are used to draw attention on, and to enhance the
quality and the beauty of design and sustainability as innovation, and as
objects that can only achieve the status of food thanks to design. The way
that the insects are subordinated to design relegates them to being a curi-
osity, not a primary interest. For instance, in describing her project, Un-
ger observes how her bioreactor, “enables people to turn against the dys-
functional system of current meat production”, but never mentions that a
transformation would be only triggered through a shift in our eating hab-
its. Furthermore, the designers collective behind ENTO emphasize the
beauty and style of their well-packaged products, a way, they admit, to
hide the insect content in an attempt to make it more palatable to the
Westerner’s sense of taste and expectations.
     In addition, no thought is given to the overproduction that the adop-
tion of these bioreactors would cause, nor the multiplication of consumer
products, despite the genuine commitment to the environment and sus-
tainability incorporated into their messages. For instance, Dzamba ap-
pears to think of the entomophagy revolution as a fait accompli: his pro-
122                                                          Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

motional website (Dzamba 2015b) pays special attention to reporting
about the productivity of his bioreactor as opposed to the waste of land
and resources produced by traditional meat (poultry, beef and pork), thus
partially dismissing the uses of crickets in food.
    In his video, Ourasanah describes the difficulty of Western culture to
modify its lifestyle (Ourasanah 2012). Abundance and overproduction
leads to the assumption that selecting what to eat is a choice, and not a
necessity. In this scenario, transforming people’s eating habits becomes a
challenge if it is presented as a matter of commitment or as a decision im-
plying some form of sacrifice. The examples described so far respond to
this apparent impasse by using design as an incentive: the individual will
accept the new habit because of its design, or because of the gadgets ac-
companying it. In some way, the use of design to lure the individual-as-
consumer is a sign of resignation, deriving from the notion that no com-
mitment to environmental causes and lifestyle changes can succeed, un-
less it is associated to practices that reproduce the models of consumer-
ism and accumulation grounding our culture.
    Thus, although one should acknowledge and even praise the enthusi-
asm for the potential environmental benefits of these ideas and the new
technologies and industrial applications that the above projects generate,
these benefits are always tied to principles of ceaseless growth, constant
reliance on innovation and the production of increasingly new design, as
well as obsolescence, as newer design models would probably be released
as “improvements” in the future to supplant the original bioreactors.
    The applications merging insects and technology acknowledge the co-
existence and mutual dependence of insects (as animal/other), technolo-
gies, and the human. However the very focus on individual choice and on
lifestyle clearly demonstrates how their mandate and goals not only are
focused on the sole improvement of the human species, but they also tend
to prioritize – for necessity or for choice – the technology and the innova-
tive product over the insect that has inspired it.


5. The Quest for the Ultimate Solution

5.1. Disappearing Bees

    On May 2013, in the wake of recent concerns regarding the widely
documented decimation of bees, a press release from Harvard’s School of
Engineering introduced Robobees, a Micro Air Vehicles Project “inspired
by biology” (Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science, n.d.;
Ma et al. 2013), consisting of a family of robotic insects which could be
equipped, one day, with the ability to pollinate. According to the lab’s
press release, these state-of-the-art objects of micro-robotics could re-
establish the ruptured ecological equilibrium left by the scientifically cor-
Buiani                                                                    123
roborated and well-documented extinction of their biological relatives
(Steffan-Dewenter et al. 2005; Wood 2009; Piore 2013).
     The lab released a series of demo videos (Harvard University 2013),
which were widely distributed online, and attracted the attention of the
press, prompting questions of “whether particular forms of artificiality
[...] were appropriate replacements for equivalent phenomena we have
designated as natural” (Margolin 2002, 17); and whether the solution to
the extinction of the bees could be found in the implementation of new
technologies, or rather in the intensification of the battle for their preser-
vation.
     The issue has gathered both enthusiastic adopters, who regarded this
technology as the new frontier in micro-robotics, and challengers, who
questioned its ethics, accusing the Harvard’s School of Engineering of
opportunistically using an urgent environmental concern to obtain more
media visibility and sympathy from the public; to conceal the real pur-
poses lying behind such research, namely, the development of micro-
robotics machines for military and surveillance purposes; and to advance
a discourse encouraging the replacement of the natural and organic with
the artificial and machinic.
     Among the challengers, Greenpeace pointed the finger at the website
of the Robobees project in its “Save the Bees” campaign, warning against
the reliance on technologies to solve this environmental crisis and asking
the question: “should we create a new world or save our own?” (Green-
peace 2015).
     To raise awareness about the contentions that this project had
prompted, in May 2014, a group of performers marched into the Micro-
Robotic Lab at Harvard University. Reverend Billy, a performer known
for his anti-corporate stunts as a pseudo-televangelist, led the group com-
posed by the Church of Stop Shopping and Ethiopian-American activist
Theodros Tamirat. Together, they had recently released an album voicing
environmental concerns titled “Earthalujah” (Reverend Billy 2013). The
group carried fruits and vegetables – all items available to human beings
thanks to the labor of pollinators –which they offered to the Robobees, by
laying the produce in front of a showcase where they were being dis-
played, chanting “These bees that are dying: we are asking you to place
your genius, your research, your scientific know-how to save the honey
bees” (Reverend Billy vs Robobees 2014).
     Upon hearing the performers exhorting the scientists to redirect their
research on saving the bees rather than replacing them, one of the scien-
tists interviewed, candidly admitted that the purpose of the research had
not at all emerged from a desire to replace the precious insects: “The sto-
ry is that people are making small robots. That’s an interesting technology
that normally has lots and lots of uses. But now you want to sell that sto-
ry, you want to get funding, you want to get coverage, so you have to tell
a story. Hey! We are going to call them bees. Bees is a good story, but
then if you call them only bees then Fox News gets upset, because you are
124                                                            Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

wasting money on bees, so you call them ‘robot bees’” (Reverend Billy vs
Robobees 2014).
    Whether we examine the Robobees project from the perspective of
the enthusiasts or the challengers, two aspects immediately emerge: first,
the technology is both “producer and mediator of the bee as a specific
scientific question” (Parikka 2013). In fact, the micro-robotics technology
at the basis of Robobees is driven by the goal to imitate the bee (its flight,
its size, its extraordinary ability to pollinate). In turn, it gains popularity
thanks to the bee and its significance. In the case of the Robobees, the
very relationship between technology and bees becomes the conjuncture
around which technological and strategic decisions are made. What
seems to stem from scientific data and public concerns about the alarm-
ing rates of decline of pollinators is conveniently coopted and used as a
do-good motivation by the engineers at the Micro-Robotics Lab. In fact,
by cleverly using the bees as its main subject, the lab temporary shifted
the public attention away from some of the main sponsors of the project,
namely the Navy, the Air Force and DARPA, whose goals are certainly
more concerned with developing micro-surveillance devices for military
uses, than with creating a new class of pollinators (Reverend Billy 2014).
    It is micro-robotics and its promises that gain most traction, not the
wellbeing of pollinators or the good of the environment. On the one
hand, micro-robotics stands for innovation and improvement of human
ingenuity, which is believed to enable us human beings to potentially
master the functionality and complexity of nature. On the other hand, it
constitutes a threat to nature. As we marvel at the shrinking in size of
technologies and at their increasing precision at imitating nature, the ex-
tinction of the bee becomes of secondary importance. As Victor Margolin
argues, the goal of technology in fact “is to improve upon nature to re-
place natural organisms and processes with artificial ones in order to in-
crease overall social efficiency and profit” (Margolin 2002, 18).
    According to Margolin, the reason behind this tendency is economi-
cal, that is “to spend more to produce economically valuable engineered
species than to protect economically useless endangered ones” (Margolin
2002, 17). As the scientist interviewed after the Reverend Billy’s action
confirmed, building tiny robots and calling them Robobees guarantees
more funding and visibility to the lab, than “merely” trying to protect the
well-being of bees by using simpler and less sophisticated technologies
and remedies.
    Furthermore, bees are perceived as useful to the preservation of eco-
systems and to human beings, since they make the production of most
fruits and vegetables possible, by transporting pollen and seeds from
place to place. While for Greenpeace and Reverend Billy bees are species
to be revered and worth saving, for the scientists at the Micro Air Vehi-
cles’ lab they constitute an enough important species to be imitated. In all
cases, there seems to be a shared interest in the ability of bees to polli-
nate, a quality crucial to the conservation of nature, which in turn is es-
Buiani                                                                 125
sential to the human species.
    This is an anthropocentric argument emerging even from the most
well-meaning enterprises. In fact, the preservation of said quality, one
may argue, can be pursued with or without bees, feeding in this way the
urge to rely on technologies, rather than on other solutions. The preserva-
tion of the Earth, Margolin argues, “requires a profound shift in con-
sciousness: a recovery of more ancient and traditional views that revere
the profound connection of all beings in the web of life and a rethinking
of the relation of both humanity and divinity to nature” (Margolin 2002,
19). However, this argument does not take into account the needs for
human beings to survive our current economic climate, a system that ad-
vocates the use of technologies as a fix for personal gain, economic
growth and material wealth, rather than for solutions that would
strengthen the relationships between humans and the animal other (Fry
2008).


5.2. Proliferating Mosquitos

    The conservation efforts of Greenpeace and the attempt at fabricating
of the Micro Air Vehicles lab focused on saving and re-making a species
destined to extinction. However, it is also worth considering how the op-
posite scenario – the attempt at exterminating an invasive species by
means of innovative bioengineering techniques – manifests analogous
rhetoric and rationales. Although using different technology and scientific
knowledge, and addressing opposite issues, spread over extinction, the
tendency to conform to the above joint economic/capitalist and anthro-
pocentric principles can be also observed in the battle against mosqui-
toes.
    Genetically Modified Organisms (or GMOs) are used in a variety of
areas of research: bacteria are modified to produce insulin; transgenic
seeds and plants are manipulated genetically for scientific research, to
create new plants and crops; or for experimental medicine (e.g. gene
therapy) (Newell 2003). However, they have been mostly criticized in re-
gard to the production of food that went unregulated (or inadequately
regulated) thanks to the complacency of the government and their rela-
tions with the biotech industry (Phillips and Isaac 1998). Public opinion
regards the risks of GMO food on the human body as insufficiently stud-
ied, and deems the authorities unable to provide appropriate regulations
that are both objective or reliable (Roff 2008).
    Conversely, GMO plants (e.g. the Suntory blue rose) and animals (e.g.
GFP Bunny, Glofish or transgenic mice for laboratory research purposes)
have been welcomed somewhat differently. Whether produced for pleas-
ure, entertainment or scholarly goals, these non-human creatures have
elicited criticism and ethical questions, but they have never caused the
same level of anxiety as GMO food. The worry caused by GMOs appears
126                                                           Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

to be directly proportional to their proximity to, and their ability to affect
human personal liveliness and the human body: humans ingest food, and
they are more likely to carry the future impact of GM produce on their
physical health.
    The case of GM mosquitoes as a solution to endemic diseases such as
Dengue Fever or Malaria has been brought to public attention in a rela-
tively recent article on the New Yorker which described the method de-
veloped by British biotechnology company Oxitec to modify the genetic
structure of male Aedes aegypti mosquito, “essentially transforming it into
a mutant capable of destroying its own species” (Specter 2012).
    According to a number of studies, mosquito-borne diseases kill
around 1 million people a year (most of them children) and affect more
than 500 million people (Shah 2011). Currently, no effective cure has
been found for Dengue Fever and Malaria, two diseases transmitted by
mosquitos, and endemic in countries with tropical climate. With chemi-
cals such as DDT becoming increasingly ineffective in destroying these
insects, and climate change favoring their spread, finding new solutions
has become an urgent problem. Most efforts have been dedicated to the
extermination of these insects, arguing that their contribution to the ecol-
ogy they inhabit is minimal.
    The genetically engineered Aedes Aegypti mosquito, or OX513A, has
already been used in successful trials in remote areas of Brazil, thanks to a
collaboration between Moscamed, Oxitec (two biotech companies) and
the University of São Paulo (Abumrad 2015). However, the steady spread
of this species into the northern hemisphere and the increase of Dengue
Fever cases in the South of the United States have convinced some local
governments to initiate new trials and support from a portion of the pop-
ulation.
    According to some sources, in 2009, Key West, Florida, suffered its
first dengue outbreak in seventy-three years (Specter 2012). While there
were fewer than thirty confirmed cases, as the population of the islands is
limited, there was a main concern that this occurrence would damage its
florid tourist industry.
    The residents were faced with a dilemma: to rely on GM technologies
to lower the mosquito population, or risk losing money and customers.
Interestingly, the main concerns of the opponents to this trial were not
about the existence of GM mosquitoes per se, but about the effects po-
tentially caused if by any chance one of those GM mosquitoes accidental-
ly bit a resident: would these mosquitoes affect the resident’s DNA? The
motivations behind choosing to welcome the trial and the types of con-
cerns generated emphasize not only a reliance on technoscientific innova-
tion as the only solution to a problem, but also its use to minimize com-
mercial loss rather than human loss. In fact, as Michael S. Doyle, a resi-
dent of Key and an entomologist admits in an interview, “Part of our
problem is the image of dengue. [...] A couple of hundred cases here
could be devastating to the tourist economy” (Specter 2012).
Buiani                                                                   127
    I would also argue that using a state of the art innovative method to
exterminate mosquitoes may be perceived more efficient and effective
than traditional methods or non-technological solutions. In addition, the
arguments in favor of the extermination of mosquitoes tend to be always
skewed towards the conservation of humans and their economic well-
being. No issues are raised about the contributions –if any—made by
mosquitoes to the non-human ecology or the impact that their extermina-
tion would pose to said ecology. Given the bad reputation of mosquitoes,
and the assumptions that this species only causes annoyances and damag-
ing effects, the problem remain completely human focused.


5. Conclusion

    The heterogeneous undertakings that constitute the insect industry
appear to have enjoyed extensive media attention and popularity with the
general public. However, despite their apparently well-meaning purposes
and their admirable rhetoric, they do not appear to awaken any public re-
sponsibility towards the environmental challenges facing mankind in the
next decades, or to generate a desire to contribute actively to leading a
more sustainable and less wasteful existence. Rather, the insect industry
appears to have benefited from both the subject (insects) and the tech-
nologies (state-of-the-art, innovative) they engage with.
    In the examples I have described, designers, scientists and engineers
successfully exploit the quality of insects as abject, yet enticing subjects,
as creatures evoking “particular vicissitudes of our instincts formed early
in childhood, which have acquired material properties of an external
world of human and other than human forces” (Loo and Sellbach 2013,
20). In addition, they have accompanied this attention-grabbing subject
with already popular emerging technologies. This move likely put them in
a condition of advantage in regards to other designers and scientists
working with similar technologies and innovative design, but engaging
with less attention-grabbing and controversial subjects such as insects.
    Thus, although the practices mentioned in this paper are apparently
unrelated, since they engage with distinct fields of research and creative
entrepreneurship, their emphasis on innovation and sustainability follows
very similar discursive patterns and rhetorical strategies. As I mentioned
early on, we should not dismiss these practices as yet another attempt at
“greenwashing”. In fact, in most cases, the choices to undertake insect-
related projects originate from genuine concerns, or at least some aware-
ness of the challenges posed by industrial overproduction, food waste and
climate change.
Thus, the insect industry obeys and at the same time contradicts the im-
peratives of economic growth and the principles of technological innova-
tion supported by Western culture. This tendency reveals a solutionist
approach in its enthusiastic reliance in technologies, science, and design.
128                                                               Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

However, it also shows how considering alternative paths that go against
this trust in technologies would be damaging to these designers and scien-
tists’ financial survival. Finally, as good intentions are trumped by press-
ing economic necessities, exceptionalism prevents us from seeing the rela-
tionships between humans and animal-others differently. As Sharon
Kirsch notes “Man, like all other organized beings, is born, grows and
perishes. But Homo Sapiens does not like to be “like”. He can’t imbibe it.
So the thinkers of London and Paris encouraged Man [...] to mistake his
proximity to other animals for dominion over them” (Kirsch 2008, 19).


References
Abraham, J. (2001) Eyeless Creature Turns Out to Be All Eyes, in “The New York
   Times”, Science section, September 4, http://www.nytimes.com/2001-
   /09/04/science/eyeless-creature-turns-out-to-be-all-eyes.html (retrieved Sep-
   tember 25, 2015).
Abumrad, J. (2015) KILL ’EM ALL. Radio Lab Podcast. in http://www.–
   radiolab.org/story/kill-em-all/?utm_source=sharedUrl&utm_medium=-
   metatag&utm_campaign=sharedUrl (retrieved March 13, 2015).
Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entan-
   glement of Matter and Meaning, Durham, Duke University Press.
Boyer, M. (2015) The Lepsis Is a Terrarium for Growing Edible Bugs at Home!,
   available at http://inhabitat.com/mansour-ourasanah-designs-a-vessel-for-
   farming-edible-insects-at-home/. (Retrieved March 13, 2015).
Brady, O.J., Gething, P. W., Bhatt, S., Messina, J.P., Brownstein, J.S, Hoen, A.,
   Moyes, L., Farlow, A.W., Scott, T.W. and Hay S.I. (2012) Refining the Global
   Spatial Limits of Dengue Virus Transmission by Evidence-Based Consensus, in
   “PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases”, 6 (8), e1760.
Burnett, J., Senker, P. and Walker, K. (2009) The Myths of Technology: Innova-
   tion and Inequality, New York, Peter Lang.
Chiew, F. (2014) Posthuman Ethics with Cary Wolfe and Karen Barad: Animal
   Compassion as Trans-Species Entanglement, in “Theory, Culture & Society”,
   31 (4), pp. 51–69.
Dzamba, J. (2015a) Circle Chirp, in http://www.circlechirp.com/ (retrieved March
   13, 2015).
Dzamba, J. (2015b) Third Millenium Farming, in http://third–millennium-
   farming.com/1.-Corporate-Home.html (retrieved March 13, 2015).
ENTO Official website (n.d.) ENTO Foods LTD, in http://www.eat-ento.co.uk/
  (retrieved March 31, 2013).
Fry, T. (2008) Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice, Oxford, Berg Publishers.
Galison, P. (1984) Descartes’s Comparisons: From the Invisible to the Visible, in
Buiani                                                                         129
    “Isis”, 75 (2), pp. 311–326.
Goodbun, J. (2010) 2010 Hijacking Sustainability, in “Radical Philosophy”, 160
  (April). Available at http://jongoodbun.wordpress.com/papers-and-publi-
  cation/2010-hijacking-sustainability/ (retrieved December 15, 2014).

Greenpeace (2015) Bees Decline, in http://bees-decline.org/ (retrieved March 13,
   2015).
Haraway, D. (1989) Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of
   Modern Science, New York and London, Routledge (reprint).
Haraway, D. (1992) The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inap-
   propriate(d) Others, in Lawrence Grossberg, C. Nelson, and P. Treichler
   (eds.), Cultural Studies, New York and London, Routledge, pp. 295–337.
Haraway, D. (2008) When Species Meet, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minne-
   sota Press.
Haraway, D. (2009) Becoming-with-Companions: Sharing and Response in Experi-
   mental Laboratories, in “Animal Encounters”, 6, pp. 115-137.
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science (n.d) RoboBees. A Conver-
   gence of Body, Brain, and Colony, in http://robobees.seas.harvard.edu/ (re-
   trieved October 12, 2013).
Harvard University (2013) RoboBees, in https://www.youtube.com/watch?-
   v=hEZ7rHRifVc (retrieved October 13, 2013).
Harvey, D. (2005) The New Imperialism, Oxford, New York, Oxford University
   Press.
Hollingsworth, C. (2005) Poetics of the Hive: Insect Metaphor in Literature, Iowa
   City, IA, University of Iowa Press.
Holt, V.M. (1992/1885) Why Not Eat Insect Facsimile of 1885 ed. Kent, Pryor
   Publications.
Phillips, P.W.B. and Isaac, G. (1998) GMO Labeling: Threat Or Opportunity?, in
    “Journal of Agrobiotechnology Management and Economics”, 1 (1), pp. 25-
    30.
Kirksey, E., Schuetze, C. and Helmreich, S. (2014) Introduction. in E. Kirksey
   (ed.), The Multispecies Salon, Durham, Duke University Press, pp. 1-24.
Kirsch, S. (2008) What Species of Creatures: Animal Relations from the New
    World, Vancouver, New Star Books.
Loo, S., and Sellbach, U. (2013) Eating (with) Insects: Insect Gastronomies and
   Upside-Down Ethics, in “Parallax”, 19 (1), pp. 12-28.
Magnet, S. (2013) Robots and Insects: Gender, Sexuality, and Engagement in
  ‘Mixed Societies’ of Cockroaches and Robots, in “WSQ: Women’s Studies
  Quarterly”, 41 (3-4), pp. 38-55.
Ma, K.Y., Chirarattananon, P., Fuller, S.B. and Wood, R.J. (2013) Controlled
   Flight of a Biologically Inspired, Insect-Scale Robot, in “Science”, 340 (6132),
130                                                               Tecnoscienza - 6 (1)

      pp. 603-607.
Margolin, V. (2002) The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design
   Studies, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
McManus, P. (1996) Contested Terrains: Politics, Stories and Discourses of Sustain-
  ability, in “Environmental Politics”, 5 (1), pp. 48-73.
Moilanen, J., and Vadén T. (2013) 3D Printing Community and Emerging Practices
   of Peer Production, in “First Monday”, 18 (8).
Morozov, E. (2014) To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological So-
  lutionism, New York, Public Affairs.
Mullin, M.H. (1999) Mirrors and Windows: Sociocultural Studies of Human-
   Animal Relationships, in “Annual Review of Anthropology”, 28 (1), pp. 201-
   224.
Newell, P. (2003) Globalization and the Governance of Biotechnology, in “Global
  Environmental Politics”, 3 (2), pp. 56–71.
Ourasanah, M. (2012) LEPSIS. in https://vimeo.com/55695909 (retrieved No-
   vember 15, 2013 data).
Parikka, J. (2010) Insect Media: An archaeology of animals and technology, Minne-
    apolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press.
Parikka, J. (2013) Insects and Canaries: Medianatures and Aesthetics of the Invisi-
    ble, in “Angelaki”, 18 (1), pp. 107-119.
Parr, A. (2009) Hijacking Sustainability, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Piore, A. (2013) Rise Of The Insect Drones, in “Popular Science”, available at
    http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/rise-insect-drones (retrieved De-
    cember 19, 2014).
Reverend   B.    (2013)     Earthalujah,   in   http://revbilly.bandcamp.com/-
   album/earthalujah (retrieved March, 12, 2015).
Reverend Billy (2014) The Promised Land of the Robotbee, Monsanto and
   DARPA, in “Huffington Post”, August 3. Available at http:-
   //today.yougov.com/huffingtonpostwidget/live/webpollsmall1.html?topic=po
   litics (retrieved April 1, 2015).
Reverend Billy vs Robobees (2014), in https://www.youtube.com/-
   watch?v=PYlaVO0tQPo&feature=youtube_gdata_player (retrieved February
   15, 2015).
Robbins, P. (2004) Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction, Malden, MA, Black-
   well Pub.
Roff, R.J. (2008) Preempting to Nothing: Neoliberalism and the Fight to De/re-
   Regulate Agricultural Biotechnology, in “Geoforum”, 39 (3), pp. 1423-1438.
Serres, M. (2007) The Parasite, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press.
Shah, S. (2010) The Fever, New York, Sarah Crichton Books.
Buiani                                                                         131
Siganos, A. (1985) Les mythologies de l’insecte: histoire d’une fascination, Paris,
    Librairie des Méridiens.
Slade, G. (2007) Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, Cam-
    bridge, MA, London, Harvard University Press.
Specter, M. (2012) The Mosquito Solution, in “The New Yorker”, July 2. Availa-
   ble at http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/09/the-mosquito-solu-
   tion (retrieved January 15, 2014).
Steffan-Dewenter, I., Potts, S. G. and Packer L. (2005) Pollinator Diversity and
    Crop Pollination Services Are at Risk, in “Trends in Ecology & Evolution”, 20
    (12), pp. 651–652.
Sullivan, S. (2013) Banking Nature? The Spectacular Financialisation of Environ-
    mental Conservation, in “Antipode”, 45 (1), pp. 198–217.
Unger, K. (n.d) Farm 432: Insect Breeding, in http://www.kunger.at-
   /161540/1591397/overview/farm-432-insect-breeding (retrieved March 13,
   2015).
Van Huis, A. (2013) Potential of Insects as Food and Feed in Assuring Food Securi-
   ty, in “Annual Review of Entomology”, 58 (January), pp. 563–583.
Van Huis, A., Van Itterbeeck, J., Klunder, H., Mertens, E., Halloran, A., Muir G.
   and Vantomme P. (2013) Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed
   Security. 171. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Avail-
   able at http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e.pdf (retrieved 19 April,
   2015).
Wolfe, C. (2013) Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical
  Frame, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press.
Wood, R. (2009). Robotic Insects, in “Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE Aerospace
  Conference”, pp. 1-2.
