The Campaign against ‘Live Exports’ in the UK: Animal Protectionism, the Stigmatisation of Place and the Language of Moral Outrage

Abstract

In this paper I will emphasise the centrality that the animal protectionist theme plays in generating a specific language of moral outrage, including its ability to mobilise a range of diverse social actors toward collective action. Focusing upon a recent animal welfare campaign, the campaign to end the export of live farm animals to continental Europe, I will argue that the language of moral outrage reflected adherence to the AP theme, and was a reaction to a strong sense of ‘spoiled identity’ within the local communities, which assisted in the development of a temporary protest consciousness in the two towns under study. Furthermore, the moral outrage expressed by protesters was given additional intensity by the heavy handed public order policing strategies implemented by the two regional police forces, this further strengthened the protesters resolve to continue the protests. The campaign will be shown to be an outcome of a combination of specific local factors and broader social, cultural and historical values of concern over our treatment of non-human animals. I will theorise the protests as an attempt to purify a stigmatised social space of a perceived contaminating practice, or moral ‘evil’.