Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight
by Timothy Pachirat
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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 show more 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. show lessTags
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The Politics of Sight: this is Pachirat's posit. He spent some months working 3 different jobs in a slaughterhouse, to gain research for his dissertation. His observation that even in plain sight, humans will seek to obscure and deny what is facing them, when it is a subject of moral and ethical repugnance. So, even if slaughterhouses had glass walls, it would not serve to stop the current torture of animals eaten for food, but would, on the contrary, find more ugliness in humans, I.e. there would be brokers setting up for selling chances at being the knocker, electric cow prodder, etc. Ugh, humans.
The author did what few of us could do to bring to our knowledge and senses what the animals-as-food industry strives to conceal.
The author did what few of us could do to bring to our knowledge and senses what the animals-as-food industry strives to conceal.
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2 Works 91 Members
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- Canonical title
- Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Anthropology, Food & Cooking, General Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 664.9029 — Applied science & technology Chemical engineering Food technology Butchering And Meat/Poultry/Seafood Processing
- LCC
- TS1963 .P33 — Technology Manufacturing engineering. Mass production Manufactures Animal products
- BISAC
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- 81
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- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.19)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
