Dominion, Stewardship and Reconciliation in the Accounts of Ordinary People Eating Animals

Anna Sofia Salonen

doi:10.3390/rel10120669

Abstract

Despite the growing popularity of vegetarian foods and diets, the vast majority of people in North America and other parts of the affluent world still eat meat. This article explores what ordinary people think about eating animals and how they navigate the ethical questions inherent in that praxis. Drawing from interviews with 24 people living in Ottawa, Canada, the study shows how the concepts of dominion, stewardship and reconciliation manifest in the everyday lives of ordinary people as models for human relations with nonhuman others and the environment. These ideas resonate in the lives of ordinary people, both religious and nonreligious, and entwine as people try to make sense of how to live with the fact that their everyday food consumption causes suffering and harm. This study shows that in the context of everyday life, dominion, stewardship and reconciliation are not alternative views, but connected to each other, and serve different purposes. The study highlights a need for analyses that constitute practical ways to renew the broken relationships within creation and which incorporate nonreligious people into the scope of analyses that focus on the relationships between humans and nonhuman creation.

Highlights

This article explores what ordinary people think about eating animals and how they navigate the ethical questions inherent in that praxis
I utilise the theological concepts of dominion, stewardship and reconciliation to illuminate the perceived relations between humans and creation that underlie ordinary accounts of consuming animal meat
Drawing from interviews with 24 people living in one suburban neighbourhood in Ottawa, Canada, I suggest that envisioning consumption patterns that rely less on animal meat requires a new paradigm for human relationships with nonhuman others that takes reconciliation and respect as its starting point and listens to the voices of nonreligious people

Summary

Introduction

This article explores what ordinary people think about eating animals and how they navigate the ethical questions inherent in that praxis. The study takes part in the discussion concerning the place of humans in the world and the relations between humans and nonhuman animals and the environment In recent decades, this question has been considered by the fields of theology and the study of religion, as well as by the social and political sciences (e.g., Linzey 2009; Hessel and Ruether 2000; Gross 2014; Harvey 2013; Beaman 2017; Cudworth 2015; Peggs 2012; Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011; Latour 2004; Adams 2015). The concepts of dominion, stewardship and reconciliation all deal with the place of humans in the world and humans’ relationships with and responsibilities for taking care of creation. They give varying normative stances on how these relations should be understood and/or mended. The model of stewardship, which emphasises the role of humans as caretakers rather than masters of creation, can be seen as an antidote to dominion

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