Abstract
In recent decades, there has been a proliferation of alternative food networks (AFNs) which promote an agenda of reconnection, allegedly linking consumers and producers to the socio-ecological origins of food. Rarely, however, does the AFN literature address “origins” of food in terms of animals, as in the case of meat. This article takes a relational approach to the reconnection agenda between humans and animals by discussing how the phenomenon of animal welfare and “happy” meat are enacted by producers and consumers in mundane, embodied, and nuanced ways. Utilizing hybrid conceptualizations of human–animal relations through “natureculture” and “being alongside”, we demonstrate that consumers and producers of AFNs perform natureculture entanglements daily, often considering humans and animals as part of one another and the ecological system. Nonetheless, we also point to how participants in AFNs set boundaries to distance themselves from moments of animal life and death, explaining away uncomfortable affective naturecultures through commodification logics. Drawing on qualitative data from consumers and producers of food networks in Austria, we introduce the concept of “human–animal magnetism” to illustrate that the draw for humans to care about other animal lives exists within a spectrum of attraction and disassociation, engendered through specific human–animal interactions. Ultimately, we offer a cautiously hopeful version of alterity in AFNs of meat in which more caring human–animal relations are possible.
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Notes
A caveat: the authors do not claim an inherent goodness in AFNs and caution against such efforts, following scholars which point to the many blind spots and limits of AFNs in their racial and economic exclusivity (see Guthman 2008; Slocum 2007). What we do wish to argue is that in our review of AFN literature, inquiry into affective human–animal relationships is missing, which is striking considering the agenda of “reconnection” in the food movement.
Haraway discusses meat-eating as compatible with her notion of “companion species”, while vegan and vegetarian scholars articulate a different understanding. Critical animal scholars reject meat-eating as incompatible with feminist principles and fundamentally contrary to an egalitarian society (see Adams 1990; Adams and Gruen 2014; Donovan 1990; Potts 2016). However, for Haraway and ecofeminists like Val Plumwood, eating meat acknowledges a species interconnection and foregrounds embodiment and human–animal continuity (Haraway 2008; Plumwood 2000).
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Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was made possible due to funding from the Regional Government of Styria, Austria, under the project title “(Un)Knowing Food.” We would also like to warmly thank the many local farmers and consumers who shared their time and stories with us.
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Bruckner, H.K., Colombino, A. & Ermann, U. Naturecultures and the affective (dis)entanglements of happy meat. Agric Hum Values 36, 35–47 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-018-9884-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-018-9884-2