E-Book Overview
The connection between people and companion animals has received considerable attention from scholars. In her original and provocative ethnography Livestock/Deadstock, sociologist Rhoda Wilkie asks, how do the men and women who work on farms, in livestock auction markets, and slaughterhouses, interact withoor disengage fromothe animals they encounter in their jobs? Wilkie provides a nuanced appreciation of how those men and women who breed, rear, show, fatten, market, medically treat, and slaughter livestock, make sense of their interactions with the animals that constitute the focus of their work lives. Using a sociologically informed perspective, Wilkie explores their attitudes and behaviors to explain how agricultural workers think, feel, and relate to food animals. Livestock/Deadstock looks at both people and animals in the division of labor and shows how commercial and hobby productive contexts provide male and female handlers with varying opportunities to bond with and/or distance themselves from livestock. Exploring the experiences of stockpeople, hobby farmers, auction workers, vets and slaughterers, she offers timely insight into the multifaceted, gendered, and contradictory nature of human roles in food animal production.
E-Book Content
Livestock/Deadstock
In the series Animals, Culture, and Society, edited by Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders Also in this series: Arnold Arluke, Just a Dog: Understanding Animal Cruelty and Ourselves Marc Bekoff, Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues: Reflections on Redecorating Nature Leslie Irvine, If You Tame Me: Understanding Our Connection with Animals Janet M. Alger and Steven F. Alger, Cat Culture: The Social World of a Cat Shelter Rik Scarce, Fishy Business: Salmon, Biology, and the Social Construction of Nature Clinton R. Sanders, Understanding Dogs: Living and Working with Canine Companions Eileen Crist, Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind Rod Michalko, The Two in One: Walking with Smokie, Walking with Blindness Ralph H. Lutts, ed., The Wild Animal Story Julian McAllister Groves, Hearts and Minds: The Controversy over Laboratory Animals Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders, Regarding Animals
Livestock/ Deadstock
\ Working with Farm Animals from Birth to Slaughter
Rhoda M. Wilkie
temple university press
Philadelphia
Temple University Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2010 by Temple University All rights reserved Published 2010 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilkie, Rhoda. Livestock/deadstock : working with farm animals from birth to slaughter / Rhoda M. Wilkie. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-59213-648-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-59213-649-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Livestock. 2. Food animals. 3. Human-animal relationships. I. Title. SF84.3.W55 2010 636.001'9--dc22 2009048498 The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 Printed in the United States of America 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
To Colin and William
Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
1╇ Food Animals: More Than a “Walking Larder”?
1
2╇Domestication to Industry: The Commercialization
17
3╇Women and Livestock: The Gendered Nature of Food-
43
4╇ “Price Discovery”: Marketing and Valuing Livestock
65
5╇“The Good Life”: Hobby Farmers and Rare Breeds of Livestock
89
of Human–Livestock Relations Animal Production
6╇ Sentient Commodities: The Ambiguous Status of Livestock
115
7╇Affinities and Aloofness: The Pragmatic Nature of