Abstract
The introduction explains the question that underpins and guides this book, which asks why cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats are not regarded as anything other than ‘food’ animals? Why do cartographies of meat dominate humans’ understandings of these animals’ lives and bodies, thereby normalising and supporting the intensification of environmentally harmful practices that demand the termination of millions of lives every hour? My point of observation is an entirely different and hypothetical territory, one that is perhaps quixotic—and that is a vegan pantopia. This pantopia is conceived in contrast to utopia, described by Foucault as “fundamentally unreal spaces”. Utopian imaginings conjure idealistic but also seemingly unattainable dreams. Pantopia is instead ‘the place of everywhere’, evocative of creative possibilities rather than impossibilities.
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Notes
- 1.
As the animals that are overwhelmingly used for meat, above all others.
- 2.
- 3.
Noske (1997) describes rather than defines the animal-industrial complex. Based on Noske’s account, Twine (2012: 23) offers the following definition: “a partly opaque and multiple set of networks and relationships between the corporate (agricultural) sector, governments, and public and private science. With economic, cultural, social and affective dimensions it encompasses an extensive range of practices, technologies, images, identities and markets”. Regarding the human-animal relationship, Noske describes it as “embedded in a web of exploitative practices, in which one type of exploitation is carried over onto another” (1997: 38).
- 4.
The annual Islamic ‘Festival of sacrifice’.
- 5.
A Hindu sacrificial ceremony held every five years.
- 6.
An annual holiday marking the landing of the Mayflower in Cape Cod in 1620. The beginning of colonisation is celebrated by many, and is observed by others, including indigenous peoples, as ‘a national day of mourning’.
- 7.
Australia Day marks the declaration of British sovereignty on 26th January 1788. As with Thanksgiving in the US, it is also known amongst indigenous peoples and their allies as ‘Invasion Day’. It was declared a national public holiday in 1994 and was quickly co-opted by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) in a strategic advertising campaign associating eating ‘lamb’ with patriotism. The meat-centric Aussie BBQ has become synonymous with Australia Day, while not eating meat on this day is construed (by MLA) as Un-Australian.
- 8.
Practices are not closed systems, and so all practices can be said to be related to greater and lesser degrees.
- 9.
A multi-headed, serpentine water monster from Greek mythology. For every head that was severed, the monster was said to grow two or three more.
- 10.
Although it is of course how these relationships are constituted and maintained that is being systemically reproduced across practices.
- 11.
All animals, including microbes, in their ontological relation to humans, exist in a state of domination, in that their bodies are always justifiably available and their lives legitimately extinguishable. In this book, however, I am focusing only on animals commonly used for food, or ‘food’ animals for short.
- 12.
Posthumanism is an increasingly diverse field of study, encompassing approaches based in techno-science, biology, philosophy, literature, art, the social sciences, the humanities, and many others. Within the social sciences, further distinctions are shaped by environmental, feminist, eco-feminist, cultural, and other perspectives. The strand of posthumanism I am referring to here is characterised by a largely eco-feminist, but also techno-science and environmental approach to posthumanism. It is characterised by notions of ‘becoming with’, ‘vibrant matter’, ‘hybridity’, and ‘mortal/vital/material entanglement’ (Haraway 2008; Bennett 2010; Whatmore 2002; Barad 2007; Braidotti 2013).
- 13.
Notwithstanding the rise of plant-based ‘milks’ that are gaining increasing traction. It is not clear whether this is being shaped primarily by environmental, health, ethical, and/or other concerns.
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Arcari, P. (2020). Introduction. In: Making Sense of ‘Food’ Animals. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9585-7_1
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