In the introduction of his work “Saving Animals,” Elan Abrell discusses how animal consumption regimes are built on the foundational perspective of animals as property. In studying sanctuaries, Abrell displays an alternative view where animals are viewed as subjects in relationship with humans. In moving away from the “treatment of animals as bestia sacer” (p. 20), it is clear that some animals are more fully or more easily given relational subjectivity. For example, a domesticated dog is more likely to be valued in a relational capacity by a human than the coyote living in the woods of their backyard.
How should society at large move forward in response to these ideas presented in this ethnography? How do societies effectively redesign food systems around the idea of animals as subjects rather than property? Which animals will be prioritized in promotion of their subjectivity- and will that be universal, or determined by the discretion of individual cultures?
Something that I believe should be majorly taken into consideration is that the human race has learned to survive on these resources for centuries on end, and no issue has been present surrounding the food chain and its patterns. Modern day issues like overfishing and the unjust treatment of livestock by economic entities are ones that continue to receive attention due to the extreme nature behind it, and much deservingly so. In a world where man is meant to survive and make as much use of resources as possible, an ethnography like this is appreciated from the point of view of valuing animals and the lives they are nurtured to, however will not go far in changing the beliefs and traditions practiced by many for very long.
I found the Abrell’s point about how animals are treated in relation to us humans to be really interesting, especially because I feel like you can best see that in outrage over pet abuse compared to “factory farming” of animals for meat/meat product consumption. I have a high school classmate that is functionally vegan because she disagrees with the way animals are treated in the general agricultural environment of the US, but when she visits her family in India, she’ll eat the eggs from her grandparents chickens.
I think if you look at countries or societies with differing meat/animal product consumption patterns from what we consider the norm, we could learn to redesign certain aspects of our food systems to reflect that. Though I’m personally a consumer of meat/meat products, I believe that reducing the amount of animal product we use and consume is beneficial to all of us, and can be reflected in our food systems very quickly if we shift, for example, grain and water resources from feeding livestock to feeding people. And on some level, I think it should be universal but I’m not sure that it will actually play out that way.