Author(s):
Marc Higgin* -
Adrian Evans -
Mara Miele -
Abstract:
Society's views and attitudes to the slaughter of non-human animals for human consumption is an ambivalent one: on the one hand it is the subject of rigorous scientific, political and moral debate albeit generally undertaken by 'experts'. On the other hand, the majority of consumers would rather not be reminded of death and suffering as inextricably connected with practices of eating meat or other animal products (Evans and Miele 2007). When the issue of animal slaughter does enter public debate, it is usually concerned with 'unconventional' practices; ie. religious slaughter. Here conventional practices, with their underlying assumptions and knowledges, are rarely interrogated directly, they form the consensus, the unstated Normal, from which other practices are judged.
This paper looks at the organisation of practices, bodies and technology within both conventional and Shechita slaughter. We draw on ongoing work within the DIAREL project focusing on current UK legislation on 'conventional' slaughter and Shechita guidelines on Kosher slaughter, and in-depth interviews with representatives of legislative and certification organisations.
The approach of this paper is to draw on the tradition of STS, ANT and Material Semiotics, (Law 2006 and 2007, Murdoch 2006) to explore how ethical relations between human and non-human animals are enacted and articulated within both conventional and religious slaughter by following the assemblages of moral and religious discourse, scientific research, training, technique and technology that constitute them. In this way, this paper attempts to describe how different figurations of farm animals and their slaughter become defined around a set of ethical practices.
