To read this content please select one of the options below:

Consuming Animals, Constructing Naturalness

Transforming the Rural

ISBN: 978-1-78714-824-6, eISBN: 978-1-78714-823-9

Publication date: 30 June 2017

Abstract

Greater attention to and anxiety about farm animal welfare emerged at the end of the 20th century, as worries over food safety and food quality (connected to the BSE, FMD, avian influenza and other epidemics) pushed farm animal welfare into public discourse and political debate. This chapter looks at one of the ways in which consumers’ concerns and anxieties about animal welfare are addressed by the Soil Association (the United Kingdom), whose standard is based on a scheme of production that endorses animals’ natural life in the case of certification of organic eggs in the United Kingdom. Drawing on STS approaches it addresses the processes of producing ‘naturalness’ as food ‘attribute’ (to borrow from economics) and how ‘the natural life of hens’ is achieved in the context of eggs’ production.

Keywords

Citation

Miele, M. (2017), "Consuming Animals, Constructing Naturalness", Transforming the Rural (Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Vol. 24), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 245-263. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-192220170000024012

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited