Care and the Environmental Politics of Animals as More-Than-Food

This article argues that geographical debates on care in animal agriculture often operate under a stable set of ethical coordinates. Such a frame of reference limits understandings of animals to their status as either food or not, and forecloses the possibility for farmed animals to be subjects of environmental politics and (in)justice in their own right. The paper reviews geographical scholarship on animal agriculture and academic debates on foie gras. Through this, we develop a typology of how care operates within and upholds this frame of reference: (1) care as/for production; (2) care as/for tradition; (3) care as/for welfare; and (4) care for animals as individuals or collectives. The article analyzes how care seemingly dissolves the contradictions emerging from this frame of reference by either: (a) negating farmed animals’ status as food or (b) claiming that they can be both food and cared for as more-than-food. However, this position as more-than-food is always conditioned by farmed animals’ eventual reduction to food in human projects. The article ultimately calls for environmental geographers to pay critical attention to the frames of reference their research operates in.