From behind stall doors

Amy Leigh Field

doi:10.3167/fcl.2020.012802

Abstract

Animal husbandry, a major part of the contemporary German economy, is the subject of politically and morally charged discourses about the effects of the industry on the nation’s landscape and its role in economic globalization. German politicians and activists often discuss industrialized animal husbandry practices as abusive and polluting. This article analyzes how these debates are imbricated in forms of concern about nonhuman animals that tend to be differentiated geographically by urban-rural boundaries. I argue the privileging of animals as moral entities causes interpersonal friction between those who rely on animals for a living and those who do not, and expresses fundamental tensions about the rural landscape as a space of industrialized agricultural production, as opposed to a space dedicated to the conservation of the natural environment.

Highlights

Animal husbandry, a major part of the contemporary German economy, is the subject of politically and morally charged discourses about the effects of the industry on the nation’s landscape and its role in economic globalization
The farmers’ protest was not wrong, per se, in its message that the work of farming is what prevents Germans from being hungry: 2014 statistics from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture show 85 percent of German agricultural production remains in Germany to feed the domestic population, with the other 15 percent exported to other countries (BMEL 2014: 2)
In a post-Socialist landscape still coming to terms with the hierarchies of German reunification and the participation of eastern Germany in a globalized economic order, local experiences of criticism of industrialized agricultural production are couched in east-west terms that highlight how caught in the middle those working in the agricultural sector tend to feel: on the one hand, they have done quite a lot to modernize alongside rising European production standards, but on the other, they still feel embittered over accusations of animal abuse

Summary

Introduction

A major part of the contemporary German economy, is the subject of politically and morally charged discourses about the effects of the industry on the nation’s landscape and its role in economic globalization.

Results

Conclusion