Sentient commodities and productive paradoxes: the ambiguous nature of human–livestock relations in Northeast Scotland

Abstract

The Curry Report (Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food, Farming and Food: A Sustainable Future (Curry Report), Cabinet Office, London, 2002) recently recommended that farmers ‘reconnect’ with their consumers, their markets and the food chain. In terms of livestock production this process of reconnection may not be so straightforward, firstly, because of the productive paradoxes upon which livestock production is built, and secondly, because the nature of people's relationships with livestock is complex, ambiguous and dynamic. This paper uses ethnographic data to illustrate sociologically the paradoxical nature of commercial and hobby livestock production in the context of Northeast Scotland. Producers of livestock have contradictory productive roles: as empathetic carers and economic producers of ‘sentient commodities’. The attitudes, feelings and behaviours of those working with livestock cannot be isolated from the position of both humans and animals in the division of labour (breeding, storing and finishing) and the socio-economic context in which commercial and hobby livestock production occurs. For example, those working with breeding animals tend to express varying degrees of emotional attachment whilst those preparing livestock for slaughter express varying degrees of emotional detachment. Any animal, however, that deviates from the routine process of production can stand out from the herd, become individually recognised, have more meaning to the worker, and thus become more than ‘just an animal’. I will also draw on the work of Merton (Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays, The Free Press, New York, 1976), Digard (Relationships between humans and domesticated animals, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 19(3) (1994) 231) and Kopytoff (The cultural biography of things: commoditisation as process, In: A. Appadurai (Ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 64–91) to provide an emerging framework to understand the variable characteristics of people's relationships with their animals, and to account for and capture their contradictory and unstable elements.

Introduction

For millennia domesticated animals have been, and continue to be, an unparalleled human resource. They have been the foundation upon which personal, national and global institutional livelihoods have been built (Rifkin, 1992; Schwabe, 1994). According to Swabe (1999, p. 25)

Domestication is generally taken to be the historical milestone that marks the most profound and definitive transformation in the relationship between humans and other species. Domestication is not only seen to symbolise the critical transition from simply taking from nature to actively controlling it, but is also generally taken to represent the move which most clearly distinguished humans from other animals.

This reading of domestication characterises a western conception of human–animal relations. There are three aspects to this conception. Firstly, the human–animal has transcended his or her natural environment and has progressed to a cultural sphere (Thomas, 1983). This transition represents, and is a prerequisite for human civilisation: ‘to cultivate nature was to draw it into a moral order where it became ‘civilised’. Indeed, it was the practice that signified culture itself, a term, which in its earliest European use, meant to cultivate or tend something—usually crops and animals’ (Anderson, 1998, p. 126). Secondly, having extricated themselves from the natural world, humans, especially men, were in a position to adopt a detached view of all that was located in that sphere.¹ Such an attitude was conducive to the objectification and domination of nature and its natural resources, which included animals. Salisbury (1994, pp. 13, 16) states that ‘[h]uman ownership of animals was established when people first domesticated and bred dogs to help them in their hunting’, and suggests that ‘[b]y turning animals into property, then, humans transformed the animals from wild co-inhabitors of the world to subordinates, essentially shaping the animals as if they were clay’.

Thirdly, the combination of Judeo-Christian religious teachings and philosophical ideas put forward by thinkers such as Aristotle and Descartes, provided the intellectual framework that legitimated the predominance of an anthropocentric perspective and man's dominion over animals. Although such a view has prevailed, its taken-for-granted position has been, and is increasingly being, questioned and contested by theologians and philosophers on the one side, and lay people on the other. For example, in Christianity, the notion of dominion is counterbalanced by the notion of stewardship and responsibility towards creatures (Regenstein, 1991). Changing perceptions of human–animal relations during the modern period indicate the co-existence of divergent narratives that reveal the inherently ambivalent nature of our relations with animals (Thomas, 1983; Schwabe, 1994; Cohen, 1994; Maehle, 1994; Ritvo, 1994). This legacy of ambiguity permeates intellectual debates about human–animal relations. However, what is equally important, but has attracted less attention, is how people make sense of their interactions with animals in practice.

This paper begins to address this issue by exploring the nature of people's relationships with livestock. People located at different stages of the commercial and hobby livestock production processes have varying opportunities to (re)connect with, and disconnect from, their ‘animate products’.² By exploring how such people make sense of producing, rearing, showing, fattening, marketing, medically treating and slaughtering livestock, I aim to bring to the fore the apparent productive paradoxes associated with, and the emotional complexity of, human–livestock interactions. This contribution is timely given the main recommendation advocated by the Curry Report (2002, p. 6), which hinges on the notion of ‘reconnection’:³

The key objective of public policy should be to reconnect our food and farming industry: to reconnect farming with its market and the rest of the food chain; to reconnect the food chain and the countryside; and to reconnect consumers with what they eat and how it is produced.

The authors of the report are also of the opinion that by ‘rebuilding…[and] regaining a reputation as good stewards of both land and livestock’ (Curry Report (2002, p. 24), the industry can restore consumer trust in its produce and its practices. By implication, the role of stockmanship is pivotal here, a point that has not escaped the research attention of agricultural and animal scientists. Consequently, stockpeople and their skills have been put under the microscope to maximise both the productivity and welfare of livestock under their care (English et al., 1992; Hemsworth and Coleman, 1998; Hemsworth, 2000, Hemsworth, 2003). Whilst the relationship between producers and their animals is valued particularly in the commercial sector for its financial returns, I also aim to illustrate that there are other sources of values and attitudes: it co-exists, at times uneasily, with a less obvious, but nonetheless important socio-affective component. This juxtaposition of both instrumental and substantive concerns more accurately reflects the productive contexts within which those at the ‘byre-face’ negotiate their relationships to their animals.⁴

Initially, however, I will consider how the industrialisation and diversification of farming practices have impacted on livestock production. Particular attention will be given to the commercial role of stockmanship, and the cultural and symbolic use of rare breeds of livestock in ‘post-productivist’ farming.⁵ Secondly, I will draw upon Merton's (1976) work to provide a general framework to make sense of the contradictory nature of human–livestock relations experienced in the various commercial and hobby productive contexts that I studied. Thirdly, I will locate my key research site, summarise my research methodology and provide a brief biographical profile of my interviewees. Fourthly, I suggest that the commodified status of livestock is not fixed and the status, roles, and identity of livestock can shift as the nature of the human–animal relationship changes. Moreover, the division of human and animal labour underpinning livestock production seems to have a bearing on the extent to which people interact with the animals they are in close proximity to. For example, those involved with breeding animals express varying degrees of emotional attachment whilst those preparing livestock for slaughter express varying degrees of emotional detachment. Hence, the ‘career path’ of the animal itself (breeding or slaughter) seems to be an important element in the extent to which, if at all, the human–livestock relationship develops. Nevertheless, it is important to note that any animal that deviates from the routine process of production can stand out from the herd, become individually recognised, have more meaning to the worker, and thus become more than ‘just an animal’. Fifthly, the Curry Report's (2002) policy of reconnection applies throughout the food chain and its ultimate aim is to re-establish the link between producers and consumers. Given that commercial and hobby livestock farming is built upon a number of productive paradoxes, this raises an important empirical question in terms of realising this goal: to what extent will producers and consumers welcome the opportunity to reconnect with livestock—the animate basis of the food chain? Finally, I conclude that future agricultural research relating to the training of stockpeople could give more attention to the socio-affective component of working with livestock, an area within human–livestock studies that seems to have attracted little recognition.