Description
Book SynopsisThis collection explains changing meat cultures through studies of both everyday food practices and the political economy of industrialized animal husbandry. We do this through case studies from 'affluent' and 'developing' countries. These contributions will shed light on global food connections and show how global, industrialized food and fodder systems have changed the way we relate to animals, their meat, and what kind of animals’ meat we eat. In the past few years, controversies around meat have arisen around industrialization and globalization of meat production, often pivoting around health, environmental problems, and animal welfare issues. Although meat increasingly figures as a problem, most consumers’ knowledge of animal husbandry and meat is more absent than ever. How is meat produced today, and where? How do we consume meat, and how have our consumption habits changed? Why have these changes occurred, and what are the social and cultural consequences of these changes? This book takes the reader on a geographic, ethnographic and historical journey to rural and urban areas and arenas across the world, and tells a series of stories of the dramatic changes in meat consumption.
Trade ReviewA groundbreaking contribution to current discussions in human-animal studies, Changing Meat Cultures advances understandings of the revolutionary transformations under way in the cultivation and satisfaction of humans' taste for flesh. Syse and Hansen lead an interdisciplinary team of contributors in investigations that range across Europe and key emerging economies, situating meat as at once an index of global consumerism as well as a significant contributor to the burden humanity places on the environment. Overall, the book makes a compelling case to understand meat in the present and its role in the future.
-- Susan McHugh, professor of English, University of New England
Rising meat consumption on a world scale bears heavily on a range of urgent problems. This important collection considersthe structural dimensions of dietary change, including the industrialization of livestock production, while also emphasizing the need to understand how animal flesh has been prized within diverse cultures and culinary traditions, and the different ways that attitudes and practices surrounding meat are changing. The net result is a complex picture of meatification as a global trajectory with highly variegated features, which offers many valuable insights for those working to contest it.
-- Tony Weis, University of Western Ontario
This book goes right to the heart of the most wicked issue in addressing climate change - getting people to change their consumption habits. The authors' global reach shows us how this common problem has deeply diverse roots in local cultures, economies and cuisines.
-- Richard Wilk, distinguished professor emeritus, Indiana University
In this volume, ten articles supply a coherent narrative about changing global markets related to meat production and consumption, transformations and conflicts of cultures through practices such as ritual slaughter, and possible future directions that industrial meat production can take, including lab-grown meat and plant-based meat alternatives. The text presents topics such as the "meatification" of China, India, and Brazil along with Russia and South Africa, comprising the BRICS economic framework and more; comparisons between standards of halal and kosher ritual slaughter versus humane secular slaughter; and case studies situated in Argentina and Vietnam. Philosophical discussions about ethical consumerism, erasure of the animal in meat products, cruelty, and disgust are also explored. Anthropology and geography primarily inform the works collected in this volume, with historical, ethical, and scientific contexts included. Some articles report on fieldwork data from on-site research in several countries... Some background in cultural studies, geography, or animal studies will be helpful for readers but is not required. This text will be an effective source of case studies for courses in related academic disciplines. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty.
* Choice Reviews *
Table of ContentsChapter 1: New Meat Engagements: Cultures, Geographies, Economies
Arve Hansen and Karen Lykke Syse
Chapter 2: Ritual Loss Of Life And Loss Of Living Rituals: On Judicialization Of Slaughter And Denial Of Animal Death
Karen Lykke Syse and Kristian Bjørkdahl
Chapter 3: New Geographies Of Global Meatification: The BRICS In The Industrial Meat Complex
Arve Hansen, Jostein Jakobsen and Ulrikke Wethal
Chapter 4: From Pastures To Feedlots, From Beef To Soybeans: Changing Meat Cultures In Argentina
Kristi Anne Stølen
Chapter 5: Meating Demand in China: Changes in Chinese Meat Cultures Through Time
Marius Korsnes and Chen Liu
Chapter 6: Eating A Capitalist Transformation: Economic Development, Culinary Hybridisation And Changing Meat Cultures In Vietnam
Arve Hansen
Chapter 7: Bovine Contradictions: The Politics Of (De)Meatification And Hindutva Hegemony In Neoliberal India
Jostein Jakobsen and Kenneth Bo Nielsen
Chapter 8: Reconnecting life and death in the British alternative halal meat movement
Hibba Mazhary
Chapter 9: Meat We Don’t Greet: How ‘Sausages’ Can Free Pigs Or How Effacing Livestock Makes Room For Emancipation
Sophia Efstathiou
Chapter 10: What Happens When Cultured Meat Meets Meat Culture? (Un)Naturalness And (Un)Familiarity In The Meat Of Today And Tomorrow
Johannes Volden and Ulrikke Wethal
About the Authors
Index
