This book grapples with multispecies violent exploitations embedded in corridors of power within the animal-industrial complex (A-IC). The A-IC is a useful framework for understanding how exploitative human-animal relations are central to capitalist relations and profit accumulation. ‘A-IC-related-violence’ – killing animals for economic gain – has a ripple effect which results in profound consequences for humans as well.
This collection of international scholarship explores topics as varied as how A-IC-related-violence is reproduced and sustained through rapidly changing discursive strategies, ideological architecture, and particular cultural forms that elide and legitimize animal cruelty. Several chapters expose collusion between governments, corporations, and academia as central to maintaining dominance of A-IC-related-violence. Other scholars explore the trouble with making the conditions of “meat” production visible – of de-fetishizing meat commodities. The scholarship critically explores dynamic components of an apparatus that enables A-IC-related-violence and harm but is situated within the capitalist order and charts A-IC-related-violence as the key profit-generating practice in select domains of the A-IC.
The book unmasks inherent cruelties in a proliferation of social forms that ultimately reflect a socioeconomic system that centralizes capitalist life characterized by endless growth, competitiveness, and profligate consumption. This is essential reading for those engaged in critical criminology, green criminology, violence studies, peace and conflict studies, critical animal studies, or animal rights-oriented scholars.
"List of Contributors 1. Towards Multi-Species Justice: Unveiling Violence and Exploitation in the Animal- Industrial Complex Part I: REPRODUCING ‘A-IC-RELATED-VIOLENCE’ THROUGH DISCURSIVE STRATEGIES 2. Meat scientists fight back! What the Dublin declaration tells us about the role of academia in the animal-industrial complex 3. Displaying Compassion to Hide Harms: An Analysis of the Visual Communication Strategies of the Spanish Animal Industrial Complex 4. ‘But Bacon!’ The Performative Violence of Anti-Vegan Trolling Part II: THE TROUBLE WITH ‘VISIBILITY’ IN UNVEILING COMMODITY FETISHISM 5. The Politics of Smell and The Morality of Sight: Challenging “Slaughterhouses with Glass Walls” in Animal Advocacy 6. Beef, Bible, Bullets: Suicidal Cows and the Ecological Imaginings of Brazil 7. Reexamining the Meatpacking-Methamphetamine Hypothesis Part III: CULTURAL HEGEMONY OF ANIMAL CRUELTY COMMERCE 8. Selfie Safaris: The Violence of Contemporary Camera Hunting & Trophy Shot Selfies 9. Following the Cultural Traces of Normalized and Legitimized Violence by Israeli Kosher Slaughterers toward Nonhuman Animals 10. The Arena of Controversy: Bullfighting and Its Implications in Modern Spanish Society Part IV: LEGAL COLLUSION AND THE VIOLENCE OF ‘ANIMAL CAPITAL’ 11. Horseracing as regulated cruelty: A nonhuman animal victimology perspective. 12. Non-human animals as property: what this means when companion animals are stolen 13. “They have literally given up on life;” A review of the experiences of nonhuman animals subject to reproductive violence and coercion on factory and puppy farms. 14. Which Animals Did Noah Eat?An Animal-Centric Focus on Food Crime Part V: THE IDEOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE OF PROFITABLE ‘A-IC-RELATED-VIOLENCE’ 15. Inside the Spanish Zoological Park Industry: Worker Insights on Human-Animal Relationships and Shared Vulnerabilities 16. “If I Broke Down the Wall of Flesh:” Blurring the Human/Animal Distinction in the Slaughterhouse through Ivano Ferrari’s Poetry"" 17. Embodying Non-speciesism through Altered States of Consciousness 18. A Time to Kill: Cruelty and Compassion with Companion Animals and Urban Wildlife 19. The Lennie Small Paradox: Loving Animals to Death Index"
Gwen Hunnicutt is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She studies gender violence – its varieties, causes, consequences, interspecies entanglements, and politicizations. She is the author of Gender Violence in Ecofeminist Perspective. Richard Twine is Reader in Sociology and Co-Director of the Centre for Human-Animal Studies (CfHAS) at Edge Hill University, UK. He is the author of The Climate Crisis and Other Animals (2024), Animals as Biotechnology – Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies (2010) and he co-edited (with Nik Taylor) The Rise of Critical Animal Studies – From the Margins to the Centre (2014). He has also published several articles on ecofeminism, vegan transition, the food system, and the animal-industrial complex. Kenneth Mentor is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His published research includes peer-reviewed papers in the disciplines of criminology, organizational behavior, public administration, law and society, and online learning.
Reviews for Violence and Harm in the Animal Industrial Complex: Human-Animal Entanglements
"“Violence, of course, is not only found on the streets, in pubs and taverns, or in domestic/household settings. It is frequently directed at different types of nonhuman animals (NHAs). However, critical criminologists have not been fleet at foot in addressing this major world-wide problem. Thus, this ground-breaking anthology helps fill a major research gap. It is destined to become a classic that should be mandatory reading for all progressive criminologists concerned about the protection and preservation of NHAs.” - Dr. Walter S. DeKeseredy, Anna Deane Carlson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences, Director of the Research Center on Violence and Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University ""The volume strikes the right balance between theoretical and applied content and showcases the impressive expertise of scholars across multiple disciplines and countries. This volume will be of interest to many, including (critical) animal studies scholars, ecofeminists, and political economists (to name but a few), and more generally, anyone interested in developing a future where human actions no longer threaten the species and environments around us."" - Professor Amy Fitzgerald, University of Windsor"
