ABSTRACT
The notion of ethical food is part of everyday discourse, representing more socially and environmentally responsible ways of sourcing and producing all kinds of food products, and, most importantly, of labelling these products to communicate their ethical credentials to potential consumers. ‘Ethical meat’ discourses can thus be understood as reinforcing human domination of food animals despite, or indeed because of, their animal-friendly claims. Ethical meat, as a site where the discourse of the natural is especially promulgated, is thereby conceived as a reconstituted mask that more robustly conceals human domination of food animals against a new wave of apparent transparency in meat production practices. With the emergence of ‘ethical’ meat, naturalisation has become more pronounced as a mechanism of domination. Especially surrounding practices and discourses of ‘ethical’ meat, appeals to a benign cycle of life and death, and poetic notions of animals ‘giving’ their lives as part of a natural contract, are common.
