ABSTRACT
In this introductory chapter, we suggest that contemporary consumers have become estranged from the animal origin of meat: In a whole range of situations from farm to fork, the connection between animals and meat has been broken, and awareness that the food we eat was once a living, breathing animal is covered up and forgotten, neglected, and denied. This is a critical issue, we argue, since our increasing meat consumption has a number of negative consequences. We posit that alienation from the animal origin of meat has taken place along three distinct, but interrelated, axes – the spatial, the social, and the cultural – and we present the approach we have taken to studying these processes: By way of a patchwork of thick descriptions across situations, sites, and sectors, we engage in what we dub “agri-cultural studies,” which aims to close the growing gap between production and consumption of meat. Finally, we present the country at the center of our study, Norway, which likes to present itself as best in class when it comes to animal welfare and environmental sustainability, but which has enacted an active “politics of meat promotion” that actually jeopardizes both.
