From Species to Protein: Human-animal relations at sites of Dutch pig meat production

Abstract

This anthropological thesis demonstrates how human-animal relations are constructed and understood at sites of Dutch pig meat production. The meat industry is, first and foremost, a place where two species meet and entangle: human and nonhuman animals. Through encounter, species are constantly (re)moved from context, function and guise. I suggest that the meat pig – the domesticated nonhuman animal – provides a multispecies perspective that does not separately consider the one (animal) and the other (human), but simultaneously makes sense of one phenomenon for both species. In addition, the multispecies perspective reveals and contests the boundaries of being an Anthropos at sites of meat production. I argue a complexity in grasping and making sense of the other, the other being either a human or nonhuman animal, as processes of meat production may be understood within liminality.