Rapid industrialisation of livestock farming since the 1950s has been accompanied by public and legislative concern directed towards a range of issues, including food safety and the negotiation of risk, and also the ethics attached to the care, slaughter and commodification of unprecedented numbers of animals in large scale production. Drawing on ethnographic data generated by long term fieldwork on intensive pig units, the thesis foregrounds the firsthand accounts of stockmen to explore in detail how pigs are produced now, and the reciprocal ways that pig production ‘makes’ people. Although these processes take place out of public view, pigs and people are nevertheless produced in response to external expectations, imaginations, and markets. The thesis shows how these influences, farmers’ attitudes, and the methods of pig production itself, are currently undergoing revision and change. By doing so, the thesis resists the idea that industrialisation and globalisation always and everywhere result in a flattening of space and time, arguing instead that what is produced is neither completely old or new, but rather an articulation between traditional forms of animal husbandry and new varieties of knowledge, technology and embodied practice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:571203 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Baker, Kim |
| Publisher | Goldsmiths College (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://research.gold.ac.uk/7197/ |
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