In the shadow of intensified global crises—wars, authoritarian resurgence and stagflations— the Ecology, Food, and Agriculture stream of Historical Materialism Istanbul 2026 seeks contributions that explore the conditions of metabolic rift that manifests itself as agro-food, climate and energy crises in different regions. The stream also aims to explore the challenges and opportunities that these conditions could yield to.
In the wake of overlapping food, climate, and energy crises intensified by war, debt, and ecological collapse, agro-food sectors and extractive industries have become key frontiers of capitalist accumulation. Ecological systems are being reshaped by extractivism, speculation, and enclosure. From climate-induced crop failures to war-related blockades, food systems condense the contradictions of capitalism: the appropriation of nature, the commodification of land, and the exploitation of labour. Following Marx’s conception of the metabolic rift and subsequent Marxist ecologies (from Luxemburg and Foster to more recent ecosocialist, feminist, and world-ecology approaches), this stream situates food and agriculture within the contradictions of accumulation and reproduction.
Yet crises in food and ecology are not only sites of devastation but also of struggle and re-creation.Through this stream, we aim to bring forward practices of grassroots rebuilding, cooperative food networks, and ecological solidarities that challenge capitalist destruction and envision sustainable transformations. Contributions addressing decolonial, feminist, and ecosocialist imaginaries for ecological renewal and food justice will be vital for theorizing emancipatory futures beyond the devastating logics of crisis capitalism.
— We particularly welcome interventions from the global South, where the violent entanglement of extractivism, dispossession, and hunger is most acute, and where both the destructive and emancipatory dimensions of food and ecological politics are most visible.
Possible areas of contribution include:
— Political economy of agri-food systems, debt, and land struggles
— Ecological degradation and the enclosure of commons
— Food sovereignty, solidarity economies, and collective reproduction
— Feminist and decolonial perspectives on nourishment, care, and survival
Historical Materialism Istanbul 2026 