Meat Culture

Human-Animal Studies #17

by Annie Potts (Editor), Carol J. Adams, Matthew Calarco

The analysis of meat and its place in Western culture has been central to Human-Animal Studies as a field. It is even more urgent now as global meat and dairy production are projected to rise dramatically by 2050. While the term 'carnism' denotes the invisible belief system (or ideology) that naturalizes and normalizes meat consumption, in this volume we focus on 'meat culture', which refers to all the tangible and practical forms through which carnist ideology is expressed and lived. Featuring new work from leading Australasian, European and North American scholars, Meat Culture , edited by Annie Potts, interrogates the representations and discourses, practices and behaviours, diets and tastes that generate shared beliefs about, perspectives on and experiences of meat in the 21st century.

Genres: Nonfiction

308 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is meat culture? It is the dominant culture in which we’re all surrounded, whether or not we choose to participate in it. In fact, the ideology of meat consumption is so pervasive, the only people who seem to take note of it are veg*ns (and sometimes sociologists). This collection of essays is what happens when the worlds of veg*nism and sociology combine.

As Melanie Joy is quoted in the introduction,

Vegetarianism is also an ideology but, because it is counter to the dominant meat culture, it is visible and noticeable. When an ideology is considered a universal truth, part of ‘mainstream’ lives, the ‘normal’ or ‘orthodox’ way to view things and to be, then it is more likely to become naturalized and accepted as better than all other ways; when it becomes entrenched it also becomes invisible.

As Chris Otter is quoted more succinctly later on in the book, [Meat] is one of the strangest normal things in our world. And the more you think about it, the more true it becomes.

I feared that this book would be bone-dry academia, but I was pleased to find several vibrant, engaging essays contained in MEAT CULTURE.

One such article explores veg*n themes in the “Dr. Who” TV series. Matthew Cole & Kate Stewart do a fantastic job of taking something they obviously love, and tying it back into something they deeply care about. Best of all, they succinctly explain the world of Dr. Who so that non-fans can understand it. Being a non-Whovian, I was surprised to learn that the Dr. became a vegetarian in 1985. But by the 2000s, the character was actively eating meat. This seems backwards in a way, as general knowledge of veg*nism and its reasoning, as well as the availability of veg*n products was much greater in the new millennium than in the 1980s. (The authors give insight into this when they quote the current head writer’s rather dismissive thoughts about veg*nism and his own stated love for meat. This aspect of the ‘80s incarnation made him uncomfortable, so he changed it, arguably to the detriment of the spirit of the character.)

I wasn’t sure what to think when I started the pet food essay by Erika Cudworth. I worried that perhaps the author would either condemn veg*ns for keeping carnivorous species as companions, or argue in favor of feeding said animals a potentially harmful herbivorous diet. (As someone who has and has had geriatric pets, allergic pets, and pets with conditions that require prescription diets, I know better than to fool around with their food.)

Instead, I was mostly pleased to find a nuanced look at people, including veg*ns, who loved their companions and wanted to do best by them, all while operating in an imperfect world. Unlike many veg*n writers and seemingly many of the pet keepers themselves, the author acknowledges that the world’s factory farms and feedlots don’t operate on behalf of Fido and Fluffy. Rather, pet food is the lucrative dumping ground for animal parts unwanted or unfit for human consumption. (This of course, opens up its own troubles, as we have seen with tragedies associated with contaminated pet foods.)

An especially interesting meditation on a sci-fi novel called "Under the Skin" has me excited to read it.

[Simon Bridges · Rating 5 out of 5]

The introduction to this book is the clearest and most thorough survey of the field of critical meat studies I know, and the essays that follow are extremely interesting in their variety of approaches. Highlights are an astonishing chapter by Vasile Stanescu about Burger King advertising, a fascinating chapter by Kristy Dunn on factory farming of humans(!), and Greta Gaard's clear-sighted concluding essay on the implications of plant studies for critiques of meat.

[Ece · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an emerging scholar doing research within and through critical animal studies, I am very impressed by the wonderful work that has been put into these articles. I have my favorite chapters, but all of it is very helpful for especially people interested in nonhuman animals.
Dear authors of this book, dear researchers, thinkers; thank you for your work. It is an inspiration to me.