Politicizing edible insects

Since 2020, the issue of edible insects —whose consumption is authorized in many countries— has acquired notable centrality within the agricultural and nutritional policies of several nation-states. Their innovative character, positive environmental impact, and potential to address the global protein shortage are frequently emphasized in progressive and academic discourse. However, the promotion of edible insects has also emerged as a field of political controversy. Certain radical populist movements around the world have articulated this issue as a symbol of “wokeness”, “globalization”, and “tolerance”, and have actively opposed its public legitimation. In this article, we analyze these discursive strategies on the basis of a corpus of media publications from nine countries. Drawing on discourse analysis grounded in the model developed by Laclau and Mouffe, we argue that radical right groups exploit the issue of edible insects as a tool of identity politics. The elements of this identity politics are relatively consistent and can be identified across different parts of the world, including the discourse of U.S. Trumpists, Hungarian populists, and Italian far-right forces.