Original Article Eating one’s worlds: On foods, metabolic writing and ethnographic humor Cristóbal Bonelli Anthropology of Health, Care and the Body, Amsterdam University, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, Amsterdam, 1018 WV, The Netherlands. E-mail: C.R.Bonelli@uva.nl Abstract What happens to our academic writing when we are invited by our inter- actants to realize that what is serious for a situated set of practices might not be as serious for another set of practices? In this article I explore such situations by con- sidering the relations among eaters, ecologies and the circulation of different types of food in the context of ontological pluralism in Southern Chile. Inspired by debates on eating and subjectivities coming from empirical philosophy, as well as by theorizations on how to take others’ worlds seriously offered by ‘the ontological turn’ in anthro- pology, I explore how ethnographic situations related to eating and to foods transform epistemological distances between subjects and objects. More specifically, I show how taking our interactants seriously may lead us to eat our academic wor(l)ds, making room for unexpected ethnographic transactions emerging beyond ethnographic theorization. Subjectivity (2015) 8, 181–200. doi:10.1057/sub.2015.7 Keywords: eating; ethnographic writing; ontological turn; foods; humor Introduction In one of the stimulating articles published in the inaugural issue of this journal, the empirical philosopher and social theorist Annemarie Mol (2008) offered us some preliminary reflections on the relations between eating and subjectivity. Rather than offering a sort of ‘modern’, static definition of subjectivity, Mol has invited us to imagine what would happen if an actor were theorized as an eating self as well as to theorize subjectivities through metabolic metaphors. What would get altered in Western philosophical traditions if ‘eating’ were used as a model for philosophical reflection? According to Mol’s proposal, ‘situations to do with eating’ are indeed relevant for theorizing subjectivities as they have the capacity to transform the © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1755-6341 Subjectivity Vol. 8, 3, 181–200 www.palgrave-journals.com/sub/