Animal geographies of industrial animal agriculture in the Pandemic Era: The tragedy and insecurity of multispecies ethnography

TY - JOUR

T1 - Animal geographies of industrial animal agriculture in the Pandemic Era

T2 - The tragedy and insecurity of multispecies ethnography

AU - Mc Loughlin, Eimear Theresa

AU - Rutt, Rebecca Leigh

AU - Duus Nielsen, Niels

AU - Skriver Møller, Alberte

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Amidst the capitalist logics governing life and death in the industrial production of pigs and poultry in Denmark, we confront the ethico-methodological challenges of conducting multispecies research in this time of increased pathogen emergence and transmission: the ‘Pandemic Era’. Drawing on our empirical insights, we contend that worldly animal geographies in the Pandemic Era are constituted by biological and existential insecurity, underscoring the importance of this work. Through affectively attuning to the bordering devices of biosecurity, we convey the capaciousness of performative understandings of species that industrial agriculture constrains but which animal geographers can advance. Acts of witnessing in industrial agriculture expose the limitations of multispecies ethnography that simultaneously catalyse advancement in the field. Whilst our work reckons with the tragedy of multispecies ethnography in industrial landscapes, the limits we have encountered, from the methodological to the ethical, are incitements to critique and innovate modes of attunement that extend beyond the field of animal geographies itself.

AB - Amidst the capitalist logics governing life and death in the industrial production of pigs and poultry in Denmark, we confront the ethico-methodological challenges of conducting multispecies research in this time of increased pathogen emergence and transmission: the ‘Pandemic Era’. Drawing on our empirical insights, we contend that worldly animal geographies in the Pandemic Era are constituted by biological and existential insecurity, underscoring the importance of this work. Through affectively attuning to the bordering devices of biosecurity, we convey the capaciousness of performative understandings of species that industrial agriculture constrains but which animal geographers can advance. Acts of witnessing in industrial agriculture expose the limitations of multispecies ethnography that simultaneously catalyse advancement in the field. Whilst our work reckons with the tragedy of multispecies ethnography in industrial landscapes, the limits we have encountered, from the methodological to the ethical, are incitements to critique and innovate modes of attunement that extend beyond the field of animal geographies itself.

KW - Biosecurity

KW - Human-animal relations

KW - Pig production

KW - Poultry farming

KW - Species

KW - Witnessing

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85188238373&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/14702541.2024.2331720

DO - 10.1080/14702541.2024.2331720

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1470-2541

VL - 140

SP - 563

EP - 580

JO - Scottish Geographical Journal

JF - Scottish Geographical Journal

IS - 3-4

ER -