Every twelve seconds : industrialized slaughter and the politics of sight / Timothy Pachirat.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pachirat, Timothy, 1976-

Series:

Yale agrarian studies.

Yale agrarian studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pachirat, Timothy, 1976-.

Pachirat, Timothy.

Slaughtering and slaughter-houses--Social aspects--United States.

Slaughtering and slaughter-houses.

Meat industry and trade--Social aspects--United States.

Meat industry and trade.

Animal welfare--United States.

Animal welfare.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (320 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This is an account of industrialized killing from a participant's point of view. The author, political scientist Timothy Pachirat, was employed undercover for five months in a Great Plains slaughterhouse where 2,500 cattle were killed per day-one every twelve seconds. Working in the cooler as a liver hanger, in the chutes as a cattle driver, and on the kill floor as a food-safety quality-control worker, Pachirat experienced firsthand the realities of the work of killing in modern society. He uses those experiences to explore not only the slaughter industry but also how, as a society, we facilitate violent labor and hide away that which is too repugnant to contemplate.Through his vivid narrative and ethnographic approach, Pachirat brings to life massive, routine killing from the perspective of those who take part in it. He shows how surveillance and sequestration operate within the slaughterhouse and in its interactions with the community at large. He also considers how society is organized to distance and hide uncomfortable realities from view. With much to say about issues ranging from the sociology of violence and modern food production to animal rights and welfare, Every Twelve Seconds is an important and disturbing work.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

I. Hidden in Plain Sight

II. The Place Where Blood Flows

III. Kill Floor

IV. "Es todo por hoy"

V. One Hundred Thousand Livers

VI. Killing at Close Range

VII. Control of Quality

VIII. Quality of Control

IX. A Politics of Sight

Appendix A. Division of Labor on the Kill Floor

Appendix B. Cattle Body Parts and Their Uses

Notes

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613321541

9781283321549

1283321548

OCLC:

761369166