Livestock Deadstock: Working with Farm Animals from Birth to Slaughter (Animals Culture And Society)

248 Pages·2010·0.88 MB·English

by  Rhoda M. Wilkie

Livestock/Deadstock
In the series Animals, Culture, and Society,
edited by Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders
AlSo In thIS SeRIeS:
Arnold Arluke, Just a Dog: Understanding Animal Cruelty and
Ourselves
Marc Bekoff, Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues: Reflections on
Redecorating Nature
leslie Irvine, If You Tame Me: Understanding Our Connection
with Animals
Janet M. Alger and Steven F. Alger, Cat Culture: The Social World
of a Cat Shelter
Rik Scarce, Fishy Business: Salmon, Biology, and the Social
Construction of Nature
Clinton R. Sanders, Understanding Dogs: Living and Working
with Canine Companions
eileen Crist, Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and
Animal Mind
Rod Michalko, The Two in One: Walking with Smokie, Walking
with Blindness
Ralph h. lutts, ed., The Wild Animal Story
Julian McAllister Groves, Hearts and Minds: The Controversy
over Laboratory Animals
Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders, Regarding Animals
Livestock/
Deadstock
\
Working with Farm Animals
from Birth to Slaughter
rhoda m. Wilkie
tempLe university press
philadelphia
teMple UnIveRSIty pReSS
philadelphia, pennsylvania 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2010 by temple University
All rights reserved
published 2010
library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data
Wilkie, Rhoda.
livestock/deadstock : working with farm animals from birth to slaughter /
Rhoda M. Wilkie.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBn 978-1-59213-648-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBn 978-1-59213-649-0
(pbk. : alk. paper) 1. livestock. 2. Food animals. 3. human-animal relationships.
I. title.
SF84.3.W55 2010
636.001'9--dc22
2009048498
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the
American national Standard for Information Sciences—permanence of paper
for printed library Materials, AnSI Z39.48-1992
printed in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
To Colin and William

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Food Animals: More Than a “Walking Larder”? 1
2 Domestication to Industry: The Commercialization 17
of Human–Livestock Relations
3 Women and livestock: The Gendered Nature of Food- 43
Animal Production
4 “price Discovery”: Marketing and Valuing Livestock 65
5 “the Good life”: Hobby Farmers and Rare Breeds 89
of Livestock
6 Sentient Commodities: The Ambiguous Status of Livestock 115
7 Affinities and Aloofness: The Pragmatic Nature of 129
Producer–Livestock Relations
8 livestock/Deadstock: Managing the Transition from 147
Life to Death
9 taking Stock: Food Animals, Ambiguous Relations, and 173
Productive Contexts
notes 187
Glossary of Doric terms 203
References 205
Index 225

Acknowledgments
Iw ould like to take this opportunity to thank each and every contact
who assisted me during my period of fieldwork and interviews. Without
their time and contributions, this book would not have been possible.
I also thank the Carnegie trust for awarding a Carnegie Scholarship. I
am grateful to many colleagues at the University of Aberdeen for their
interest and support, especially Bernadette hayes and Debra Gimlin;
I am particularly indebted to Steve Bruce for taking the time to read
and comment on draft chapters. I thank Janet Francendese of temple
University press and Clinton Sanders for their insightful feedback on
an earlier version of the manuscript. For all of this support, I am most
grateful. I also thank family and friends for being there when I needed
them, especially Alistair and Fiona Wilkie, Kim Wilkie, lesley tidmarsh,
Alastair Matthewson, Cath pilley, Sandra nicoll, and John and triinu
humphrey. Finally, I express my sincerest gratitude to Colin Carroll. I
appreciate his patience and words of encouragement much more than he
will ever know.