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Slow violence and the animal-industrial complex: unpacking the consequences of coercive confinement during the war against nonhuman animals

Slow violence and the animal-industrial complex: unpacking the consequences of coercive confinement during the war against nonhuman animals

Banwell, Stacy ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7395-2617 (2023) Slow violence and the animal-industrial complex: unpacking the consequences of coercive confinement during the war against nonhuman animals. In: EUROCRIM 2023: 23rd annual conference of the European Society of Criminology. The Renaissance of European Criminology, 6th - 9th September 2023, Florence. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

During the war against nonhuman animals thousands of animals are detained in large industrial farms where they are raised at high-density for the consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy. These are referred to as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in the US and mega farms in the UK. These mega facilities emit greenhouse gases which have implications for climate change. It is estimated that, globally, greenhouse gas emissions from factory farming comprise 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions (ASPCA, 2022). Research conducted by Nature Food found that livestock production, as well as livestock feed, is responsible for 57% of all food production emissions. Environmental pollution resulting from greenhouse gas emissions is regarded as a prime example of slow violence, where the harms of pollution accumulate over time, with serious consequences (Davies, 2018). This disproportionately impacts marginalized populations: low-income, Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (Moberg, 2020). Following Davies (2018) I argue that human populations exposed to this invisible, yet inevitable, destructive violence, come to occupy spaces of contamination analogous to Mbembe’s “death-worlds.” Put simply, they are reduced to the status of the “living dead” (Mbembe, 2003). Drawing on Mbembe’s (2003) necropolitics and Nixon’s (2011) concept of slow violence, this paper outlines the environmental benefits of dismantling the animal-industrial complex for both human and nonhuman populations. It is based on a vision of environmental justice that, among other things, involves granting nonhuman animals legal personhood and freeing them from captivity.

Item Type: Conference or Conference Paper (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords: slow violence; animal-industrial complex
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
K Law > K Law (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Law & Criminology (LAC)
Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Last Modified: 13 Nov 2023 16:38
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/44872

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