Pets and protein: placing domestic livestock on hobby-farms in England and Wales.

摘要

This paper considers some of the ethical dimensions of human-animal relations in livestock farming, using the notion of 'situated morality' to examine hobby-farming as a particular set of social and agricultural practices in which farm animals are encountered simultaneously as 'friends' and sources of food. The paper considers how the socially constructed categories of 'livestock' and 'pet' become blurred in this marginal form of agricultural production. The paper draws on evidence from field research with hobby-farmers in England and Wales, UK, and on textual material, to demonstrate the ethical ambiguity of human-animal relations on hobby-farms. The paper shows how such relations are associated with specific discourses, practices and places, anddemonstrates the importance of spatiality and embodiment in understanding situated moralities.