AFTER A GOOD LIFE A DECENT DEATH?
Sociotechnical animal slaughtering innovations in the Greater Region’s meat sector: negotiations, regulations, networks
In recent years, as the meat-producing sector has faced mounting criticism regarding animal welfare, its ecological footprint or health and hygiene issues, Northern Europe has seen the development of numerous innovations in the slaughtering processes of farmed animals. In the Greater Region, projects of mobile slaughter units and ‘on-site stunning and killing of animals’ protocols are organized by multistakeholder groups of farmers, abattoir workers, consumers and administrations. These projects are raising a number of technical, legal, economical and ethical questions as they are implemented and modify national foodscapes’ configurations.
In an empirical sociocultural approach using the Multi-Level Perspective as the primary analytical tool, we engage in a comparative analysis of four different projects across the Greater Region in Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and France. Guided by a sociotechnical theoretical framework, we apply a variety of qualitative research methods: ethnography, accompanying study, semi-structured interviews and focus groups.
We try to shed light on the negotiating processes at play in the co-construction of technical and sanitary norms in the four national dynamics; to better understand how the narratives of professional actors form over those reorganizations of sociotechnical regimes of slaughter; and we investigate how these innovations interact with broader transitions in agri-food systems.
While the long terms goals of this research are to better understand the sociotechnical transitions towards more resilient, fair and efficient agri-food systems, we also try to offer direct benefits to the four ongoing projects we accompany in Luxembourg and the Greater Region.