Content call with Gaia University about complex worldviews around animal agriculture. See more at: http://www.emptycagesdesign.org

1. Eating Animals
Gaia Radio Call
Nicole Vosper, MSc Political Agroecology Pre-Cap
Tuesday 12th May 2015

2. Aims of the call
• To introduce the complex and dynamic
worldviews that impact on the species
we share this world with, most
significantly, a handful of animal species
that have been domesticated, farmed
and slaughtered to feed the world’s
populations.
• To share my research, thinking and action
learning around animal-human social
relations.
• To create a safe space for conversations
- supporting everyone to share their
worldview, opinions & experiences.

3. Who I am
• Vegan 13 years
• Stock-free grower / Permaculture
designer
• White/privileged
• Animal liberation organiser
• Deeply embedded world views around
animals
• Triggered to go vegan by family farming
connections - battery hen experience
Output challenge: Open mind to world views of others,
think critically, evaluate own beliefs

4. Who are you?
Current
worldview?
First conscious
experience of
animals for food
First connection
with animal (not
food)

5. What is a worldview?
Most broadly, a
worldview is a particular
philosophy of life or
conception of the world.
It is a mental model of
reality — a framework of
ideas & attitudes about
the world, ourselves, and
life, a comprehensive
system of beliefs.
!

6. My methodology
• Literature review - especially
to support me to navigate
world views different to my
own
• Processing historical
experiences/observations
• Tracking observations through
action learning

7. ‘Animal workers’
Dr Wilkie writes how “animals
can be located and relocated
along a status continuum that
ranges from commodity to
companion, whereby the same
animal may at times be seen by
the same worker, or by a
different worker, as a tool of the
trade, a work colleague, a
friend, or even a pet.”
Key point: complex & dynamic

8. ‘Animal workers’

9. Carnism
Dr Melanie Joy:
Carnism is a belief
system that conditions
us to eat certain
animals.
Based on the field of
psychology

10. Carnism
• How we classify an
animal
• Schemas dictate what
is/isn’t edible. Protects
us from discomfort.
• Invisibility
• Humans always avoided
eating certain animals &
sought reconciliation of
those they do

11. Carnism
• Entrenched becomes
common sense
• Natural, normal, necessary
• Psychological tools:
denial, avoidance,
routinization, justification,
objectification,
deindividualisation,
dichotomization,
rationalisation and
disassociation

12. Neocarnism
• ‘Happy meat’, ‘Free range’, RegenAG, ‘Holistic
Management’
• Willingness to examine industrial animal agriculture
• “Carnistic backlash” (Joy)
• People influenced by existing carnist upbringing,
fear of loosing privilege/being in minority, personal/
professional status, desire for relationships with
animals, dislike for political movements for animals,
gender, class, ‘softness’, authenticity e.g. ‘real’
farmer, lower status of horticulture

13. Capitalist
• Maximisation of profit e.g
CAFOs
• Accumulation of wealth
• Animals as commodities
• Reproductive control
• Animal manipulation &
modification e.g. agricultural
biotechnology, genome
sequencing of animals and
animal cloning

14. Animal Welfare
• Humans have a
right/entitlement to
use animals
• However they should
be treated better
• Example: Five
freedoms (hunger/
thirst, discomfort,
pain/injury/disease,
express normal
behaviour, fear/
distress)

15. Animal Rights
• Tom Reagon -
Intrinsic value (a
value in themselves
without reference to
human needs)
• Speciesism is what
privileges one
group over another
• Peter Singer -
utilitarianism (best
for majority)

16. Abolitionists
• Animals have right not to be
treated as property of
others
• Against reform/improved
regulation
• Veganism as moral baseline
• Sentience alone
• Non-violence, vegan
advocacy
• Intersectional

17. Feminists
• Both animals and women
are dominated by the
same patriarchical
hierarchies e.g.
consumption,
objectification
• Draw comparisons
between the role of
reproductive labour and
its exploitation to serve
capitalism/patriarchy
• Care/empathy/respect vs.
cartesian thinking

18. Anarchism/Animal
Liberation
• Commitment to eradicating all forms
of domination & oppression
• Solidarity with non-humans
• Animal agriculture played key role in
development & expansion of
capitalism e.g. ‘cattle’
• Animals symbolic & physical force for
colonisation
• Critique of consumerist/privileged/
capitalist veganism
• State protects animal industries

19. How do you
feel?
What do you think?
What came up
for you? (Distress/
connection)
So many complex world
views - what is yours?

20. Further Resources
http://portfolios.gaiauniversity.org/view/view.php?id=7389
www.emptycagesdesign.org